Definition of "aggrandize"
aggrandize
verb
third-person singular simple present aggrandizes, present participle aggrandizing, simple past and past participle aggrandized
(transitive) To make great; to enlarge; to increase.
Quotations
In Heroic Verse, but especially in the grander Lyrics, there are sometimes such noble Elevations of Thought and Passion as illuminate all Things around us, and convey to the Soul most exalted and magnificent Images and sublime Sentiments: These furnish us with glorious Springs and Mediums to raise and aggrandize our Conceptions […]
1741, I[saac] Watts, chapter 20, in The Improvement of the Mind: Or, A Supplement to the Art of Logick: […], London: […] James Brackstone, […], page 355
[…] 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.
1789, William Gilpin, “Account of the Prints”, in Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1776, on several parts of Great Britain; particularly the High-lands of Scotland, volume 2, London: R. Blamire, page ii
[…] 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.
1970, Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism in China: Ideology in Flux, New York: Atheneum, page 10
(transitive) To make great or greater in power, rank, honor, or wealth (applied to persons, countries, etc.).
Quotations
He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty, or with ten.
1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 16, in Emma: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I, II or III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray
(transitive) To make appear great or greater; to exalt.
Quotations
[…] 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.
1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 56, 29 September, 1750, in The Rambler, London: J. Payne & J. Bouquet, 1752, Volume 2, p. 179
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 […]
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
(intransitive, rare) To increase or become great.
Quotations
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.
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