[They] doe adde vnto the bitternesse of that Day, and agrandise the heauie weight of trouble.

[…] on so small a scale, it would be impossible to give an adequate idea of a grand scene. […] Were it painted indeed with exactness on a pane of glass in a window, and the eye brought to it, under the deception of it’s being a real view; the imagination might aggrandize it.

[…] the relations of ideas to power may assume infinite variations. The tendency may be to aggrandize power at all cost, to aggrandize power but to calculate soberly the risks involved, to conserve existing power, or even to yield power.

[…] the aggrandizing of your estate by well managed fortune […] may well set out your praises to the world […]

[…] under pretence of securing the purity of religion, he had laid a scheme of aggrandizing his own family, by extending its dominions over all Germany.

1855, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Boston: Phillips, Sampson, Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 2, p. 69,
[…] he seems never to have revived his schemes for aggrandizing his son by securing to him the succession to the empire.

1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 56, 29 September, 1750, in The Rambler, London: J. Payne & J. Bouquet, 1752, Volume 2, p. 179,
[…] they contrive to make all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize themselves by wasting the time of others in useless attendance, by mortifying them with slights, and teazing them with affronts.

1833, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, “Popular Fallacies” in The Works of Charles Lamb, New York: Harper, Volume 2, p. 302,
The first thing to aggrandize a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as neglected.

1881, Mark Twain, “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims,” address at the first annual dinner, N.E. Society, Philadelphia, 22 December, 1881, in Mark Twain’s Speeches, New York: Harper, 1910, p. 18,
Why, to be celebrating the mere landing of the Pilgrims—to be trying to make out that this most natural and simple and customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance—a circumstance to be amazed at, and admired, aggrandized and glorified, at orgies like this for two hundred and sixty years—hang it, a horse would have known enough to land; a horse […]

They noted the use of [the gunman’s] name is hurtful to the victims’ families and using it could assist anyone who might want to aggrandize his actions.

1946, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 2, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, p. 317,
The generals, like Hitler, wanted Germany to aggrandize at the expense of neighboring countries, and to do so if necessary by force or threat of force.

Aggrandize

Meaning

Verb

Related