Hyperbolic

How to spell hyperbolic

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce hyperbolic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hyperbolic mean?

1. adjectiveDeliberately exaggerated and not meant to be taken literally.
2. adjectiveRelating to a hyperbola or to the curved geometry based on it.

Hyperbolic in a sentence

• The advert made hyperbolic claims about overnight weight loss.

• The satellite followed a hyperbolic path as it slingshot around the planet.

• His hyperbolic praise of the restaurant made everyone suspicious of the review.

• The textbook devoted a chapter to hyperbolic functions such as sinh and cosh.

Where does hyperbolic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek hyperbole, meaning 'excess' or 'exaggeration', which was built from hyper, meaning 'over' or 'beyond', and ballein, the verb 'to throw'. The literal image is of something thrown beyond its target, an overshooting that captures both the idea of rhetorical overstatement and, in mathematics, the open curve called a hyperbola whose branches sweep beyond a fixed point. The adjective hyperbolic came into English in the seventeenth century, first in the geometric sense for things relating to that curve and then for language that is wildly exaggerated. The same ballein root, 'to throw', also sits inside words such as 'symbol' (something thrown together) and 'parable' (something thrown alongside), which can help fix the spelling of the middle 'bol'. The trap for writers is mostly that quiet unstressed first syllables and the 'y' after the 'h' invite a stray 'i', so remembering hyper, the prefix meaning beyond, keeps it secure.

How the word is built

• hyper- (over, beyond)
• bol (to throw, from Greek ballein)
• -ic (adjective suffix)