Hyperbole is exaggeration used for emphasis, humor, or to make a vivid description. It overstates qualities by magnifying them. Examples from literature demonstrate hyperbole's use to describe people as extremely thin or funny, emotions as unbearable pain or lack of brains, and a town as having no money or time spent there as feeling like weeks in a single day. Hyperbole commonly appears in humorous poetry to make a lighthearted point through exaggerated terms.

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2. What is hyperbole?
Hyperbole is the greatest,
most spectacular thing in
the history of the entire
world!

3. Hyperbole is exaggeration.
It puts a picture into the reader’s mind.
Example: You could have knocked me over with a
feather.
Hyperbole is used for emphasis (makes that part more
important) or humorous effect. With hyperbole, an
author makes a point by overstating it.

4. Hyperbole makes qualities of people or things
stand out by exaggerating them.
Examples: The skin on her face was as thin and
drawn as tight as the skin of onion.
-Flannery O’Connor, “Parker’s Back”
She’s the funniest girl I’ve ever met.
Create your own example!

5. Hyperbole can also be used to describe a person’s
emotions (feelings).
In the following selection, a boy is pulling a man up
from a deep hole.
“It was not a mere man he was holding, but a
giant; or a block of granite. The pull was
unendurable. The pain unendurable.”
—James Ramsey Ullman, "A Boy and a Man"
What makes this hyperbole?

6. There did not seem to be brains enough in the
entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fishhook with.
—Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for
there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no
money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the
boundaries of Maycomb County.
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

7. Hyperbole is common in humorous poetry.
Hyperbole can make a point in a light-hearted
way. It can be used to poke fun at someone or
something. For example, read this description
of a dull town.
It's a slow burg—I spent a couple of weeks
there one day.
—Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"

8. Hyperbole:
-is exaggeration
-is used for emphasis
-is used for humorous effect
-is used in descriptions
-of people
-of emotions