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Amplify   /ˈæmpləfˌaɪ/   Listen
Amplify

verb
(past & past part. amplified; pres. part. amplifying)
1.
Increase in size, volume or significance.  Synonym: magnify.
2.
To enlarge beyond bounds or the truth.  Synonyms: exaggerate, hyperbolise, hyperbolize, magnify, overdraw, overstate.
3.
Exaggerate or make bigger.  Synonyms: blow up, expand, inflate.
4.
Increase the volume of.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Amplify" Quotes from Famous Books



... supplied this deficiency. Not only has he traced out the sources of his author's statements and exhibited them in notes, but he has had recourse to sources of which Charlevoix knew nothing. He is thus enabled to substantiate, correct, or amplify the original narrative. He translates it, indeed, with literal precision, but, in his copious notes he sheds such a flood of new light upon it that this translation is of far more value to the student than the original ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... you will pardon the seeming rudeness which necessity compels me to manifest toward you in the present emergency. I hope soon to find you a pleasant resting-place, where I shall have leisure and opportunity to make explanations and amplify on this brief apology." ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... inspiration; when my imagination flags, as of course it occasionally does, I stare upon those features, and forthwith strange ideas of fun and drollery begin to flow into my mind; these I round, amplify, or combine into goodly creations, and bring forth as I find an opportunity. It is true that I am occasionally tormented by the thought that, by doing this, I am committing plagiarism; though, in that case, all thoughts must be plagiarisms, all that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... unbelievable,—and the way she said it! Not even Pat Murphy, the coal-wagon driver, with all his years of practice, could have said it with greater distinctness,—not even Pat who possessed the masculine right to amplify the behest with expletives not supposed to be uttered except in the presence of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... not amplify his last statement, so Phil's "Oh," in so far as it expressed curiosity as to the disposition of the Holton territory and Mr. Frederick Holton's relation to it, seemed destined ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... soul craves development. The soul is not dissatisfied, any more than the growing child. As that developing life in the child moves it to seek for the things that produce development, so the life of God in the sanctified soul moves it to seek for the things that will unfold and amplify that life. "If ye be risen [have life] with Christ, seek those things which are above." Those things, coming into our soul daily, will unfold us more and more into an heavenly life. They are food to the sanctified soul. They keep the soul satisfied, because ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... wrote, things came to him; the significance of his words became to him apparent. Opposition made it necessary to define his position, and threat made it wise to amplify and explain. He grew through exercise, as all men do who grow at all; the spirit of the times acted upon him, and knowledge ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... said Miss Taylor invitingly. There was an allurement about this all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and she was anxious for the older woman to amplify. Miss Smith, however, remained provokingly silent, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... of Metaphor. (a) Analyze the metaphor in "Murder Association." (b) Point out the words in the first three paragraphs that serve to sustain and amplify the comparison. (c) Explain the metaphors that lurk in "rush of hits to the outfield," "bakered," "unbelt," "in a ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... land of pure Greeks, with no mixture of foreign elements,"[2] etc. Such an accumulation of words in the plural number necessarily gives greater pomp and sound to a subject. But we must only have recourse to this device when the nature of our theme makes it allowable to amplify, to multiply, or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or passion. To overlay every sentence ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings. He started for England ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... our designs so often miscarry.... The heavens are angry, and I may say envious of the extension and large privilege we ascribe to human wisdom, to the prejudice of theirs, and abridge them so much more unto us by so much more we endeavour to amplify them." If there were no closer parallel than that in Montaigne, we should be bound to take it as an expansion of a phrase in Seneca's AGAMEMNON,[14] which was likely to have become proverbial. I may add that the thought is often repeated in the Essays, and that in several passages ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... and waited for yet a few moments, and though Mead did not add geniality to the conversation, he certainly contributed interest to it. For his views on honeymoon etiquette being strong within him, and an audience made to his hand, he went on to amplify some of the theories with which he had been trying to undermine ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... We will now amplify, as far as is necessary, the points already touched upon, and introduce the Variations recognised in ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel

... republic, takes the character of territory, the government of which is under the charge of a commandant-general, who exercises the charge of a superior political chief, whose attributes depend entirely upon the president of the republic and the general congress. But, to amplify the legislation of its centre, it has a deputation made up of seven vocals, the half of these individuals being removed every two years. The superior political chief presides at their sessions. The inhabitants of the territory ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... the same line during the American Revolution, had established a press in the city for printing counterfeit French money, which was sent by secret mercantile communications to Marseilles, and there was put into circulation. It was consequently soon determined to amplify greatly the plan of campaign, and likewise to send a mission to Genoa. Buonaparte was himself appointed the envoy, and thus became the pivot of both movements—that against Piedmont and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... stared with intense interest at an empty chair. His mother asked what attracted his attention, and the child said, "Don't you see, mamma, the old gentleman who is sitting in that chair?" I am careful not to add details, as my own imagination might unconsciously amplify them, but my impression is that the child was asked to describe the vision more minutely, and that his description exactly accorded with his grandfather's ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... has appeared desirable to amend and amplify certain provisions of the laws with reference to naturalization and the obtaining of ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various

... puffery &c (boasting) 884; rant &c (turgescence) 577 [Obs.]. figure of speech, facon de parler [Fr.]; stretch of fancy, stretch of the imagination; flight of fancy &c (imagination) 515. false coloring &c (falsehood) 544; aggravation &c 835. V. exaggerate, magnify, pile up, aggravate; amplify &c (expand) 194; overestimate &c 482; hyperbolize; overcharge, overstate, overdraw, overlay, overshoot the mark, overpraise; make over much, over the most of; strain, strain over a point; stretch, stretch a point; go great lengths; spin ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... been unmistakably occasioned by the merest licentiousness: every fresh Copyist evidently considering himself at liberty to take just whatever liberties he pleased with the words before him. To amputate, or otherwise to mutilated; to abridge; to amplify; to transpose; to remodel;—this has been the rule with all. The types (so to speak) are reducible to two, or at most to three; but the varieties are almost as numerous as the ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... officer, whatever of value these volumes may contain is largely due. Not only did he correct the topographical descriptions, but he investigated most carefully many disputed points; and in procuring the evidence of eye-witnesses, and thus enabling me to check and amplify the statements of previous writers, he was indefatigable. Dr. Hunter McGuire, Medical Director of Jackson's successive commands, has given me much of his valuable time. The Reverend J.P. Smith, D.D., Jackson's aide-de-camp, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... to the post-Darwinian investigations that have done so much to amplify the account of natural evolution, let us consider the contrasted explanation given by Lamarck and his followers. As we have stated earlier, Lamarckianism is the name given to the doctrine that modifications other than those due to congenital factors ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... gaily away before his mother could amplify a suggestion which spoiled a little of his pleasure in the praises—he thought they were unqualified and enthusiastic praises—she had been heaping upon Alice. He wished to go to bed with them all sweet and unalloyed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... seeth and accepteth every stage of the process. I dislike only the word 'purchased;'—not that it is not Scriptural, but because a metaphor well and wisely used in the enforcement and varied elucidation of a truth, is not therefore properly employed in its exact enunciation. I will illustrate, amplify and divide the word with Paul; but I will propound it collectively with John. If in this admirable passage aught else dare be wished otherwise, it is the division and yet confusion of time and eternity, by giving an anteriority to ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... mischiefs of the BIBLIOMANIA, my only consolation is that to advance something upon the subject is better than to preserve a sullen and invincible silence. Let it be the task of more experienced bibliographers to correct and amplify the foregoing outline! ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... can but amplify, and so enfeeble, what some old dead master of language, immortal though obscure, has said ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... king was to see those who listened to him laugh, whether with sincerity or with affectation, when he related something; he could narrate well and amplify in a very amusing manner all the particulars of an anecdote; but he called anyone who did not laugh at his jests a fool, and that was always the person who understood him best. He gave the preference to the opinion of Brambilla, who encouraged his suicide, over that of the physicians ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... a child, will have to amplify his retinal image, if he is ever to amount to anything. He will have to amplify it, and, no doubt, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... Elihu speeches and the Jehovah speeches. But there is practically nothing new in the Elihu speeches: in emphasizing the greatness of God, they but anticipate the Jehovah speeches, and in emphasizing the disciplinary value of chastisement, they but amplify the point already made by Eliphaz in v. 17ff., and most summarily expressed in xxxvi. 15. Almost the only other assertion made is that, as against Job's contention, God does speak to men—through dreams, sickness, angels, etc. The lengthy description ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify at a juncture like this"—casting an almost benignant glance toward the patient, now beginning to open his eyes; "but let me point out to you upon this thigh-bone"—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle twist—"the precise place where I propose to perform ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... Germany, it has the advantage of being comparatively new; and its exhibitions are directed to a class of minds attuned to a far higher pitch of feeling. The Germans are accused of a proneness to amplify and systematise, to admire with excess, and to find, in whatever calls forth their applause, an epitome of a thousand excellencies, which no one else can discover in it. Their discussions on the ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... questions artfully disguised, and at the beginning seemingly artlessly presented. By the very nature of Riley's answers he was further assured of the safety of the ground on which he trod, whereupon Red Hoss cautiously broached the project, going on to amplify it in glowing colors the while Riley ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... "I have a plan, my," he said. "This is a very dreadful affair, but on second thought a scheme occurs to me. I will explain somewhat of my notes, but not enough so they could amplify them. Then, with my safe conduct, I will go over to Germany, explain the whole affair, and demand your release. You will doubtless be absolutely safe here, absolutely safe. This young Handel seems rather a rattle-brained ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... genus-and-species method, restrict the genus to the narrowest possible bounds. You will thus save the need for exclusions later. Had you in your first definition of a cigar begun by saying that it is tobacco, rather than smoking-tobacco, you would have violated this principle; and you would have had to amplify the rest of your definition in order to exclude chewing-tobacco, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... convinced of its truth, De l'Epee set to himself the problem of discovering how this idea could be presented to the mind of the mute without words; and in their gestures and signs he found his problem solved. Henceforth, the way, though long and tedious, was plain before him. To extend, amplify, and systematize this language of signs was his task. How well he accomplished his work, the records of Deaf and Dumb Institutions, in Europe and America, testify. Others have entered into his labors and greatly enlarged the range of sign-expression,—modified and improved, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... of his great ancestor, and to remove allusions open to ignorant misconstruction. Instead, therefore, of giving an exact transcript of the original poems, he set himself to soften down their harshness, to clear away their obscurity, to amplify, transpose, and mutilate according to his own ideas of syntax, taste, and rhetoric. On the Dantesque ruggedness of Michael Angelo he engrafted the prettiness of the seventeenth Petrarchisti; and where he thought the morality of the poems was questionable, especially in the case of ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... morning, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances and correcting inaccuracies. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his translation, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them. With such faculties and such dispositions he excelled every other writer in poetical prudence; he wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few hazards. He used almost always the same fabric of verse, and, indeed, by those few ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... borrowed the giant's staff from St. Dunstan's church, [3] to immolate the betrayer of trust. I have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, I'll be sworn, and I hope you will amplify my wrath, till it has an effect upon him. You tell me always you have much to write about. Write it, but let us drop metaphysics;—on that point we shall never agree. I am dull and drowsy, as usual. I do nothing, and even ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... to explain why in all ages of the world the arts have been the handmaidens of religion. Not to amplify too much, I have confined these considerations to the three arts of music, painting, and poetry; but they are also applicable to sculpture and architecture. All are attempts by men of vision to interpret to the men who are ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... art of adding to weight of sentiment all the dignity of language. To a copious invention you unite the judgement that knows how to distinguish the specific qualities of different authors. The beauty of order is yours. When the occasion demands it, you can expand and amplify with strength and majesty; and you know when to be concise with energy. Your periods flow with ease, and your composition has every grace of style and sentiment. You command the passions with resistless sway, while in yourselves you beget a temperance so truly dignified, that, though, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... investigation and conclusion in English that is as thoroughly elaborated and qualified as the thought. Lyly's striking contrasts and Sidney's flowery prose do not appeal to Hooker, who uses Latin inversions and parenthetical qualifications, and adds clause after clause whenever he thinks it necessary to amplify the thought or to guard against misunderstanding. Hooker's prose is as carefully wrought as Lyly's and far more rhythmical. Both were experimenting with English prose in different fields, serving to teach succeeding writers what ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... itself in this way. First comes the genius burning with celestial fire. He sweeps away the time-worn formulas, and founds his new art upon their ruins. Then follows the crowd of disciples, men of talent and imagination, though without the crowning impulse that moves the world. They repeat and amplify their leader's maxims, until the world, which at first had stood aghast at teaching so novel, in time grows accustomed to it, and finally accepts it without question. Next comes the final stage, when ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... the expressions which summarize long passages of the preceding speech. Amplify them to indicate what ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... The original verses merely name the trees. I have been obliged to amplify slightly and to omit some quas versu dicere non est; e.g. the tinisa (Dalbergia ougeiniensis), punnaga (Rottleria tinctoria), tilaka (not named), syandana (Dalbergia ougeiniensis again), vandana (unknown), nipa (Nauclea Kadamba), ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... this longing, and by no means a confirmed unveracity, that prompted her to amplify her comments upon her own filial independence. "Oh, I guess I pretty near never do anything I don't want to," she said. "I kind of run the house to suit myself. I guess if the truth had to be told, I just about run the whole Atwater family, when it ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... amplify this point because I hope some at least of the readers of this book will find themselves asking eagerly what can be done in view of the seriousness of sexual evil. If those who go wrong in sex matters are spoiling ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... he has to tell is very complete and full of precious detail. He was, himself, an eyewitness of much that happened; he pursued a personal acquaintance with many of those who were connected with Sir Oliver's affairs that he might amplify his chronicles, and he considered no scrap of gossip that was to be gleaned along the countryside too trivial to be recorded. I suspect him also of having received no little assistance from Jasper Leigh in the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini



Words linked to "Amplify" :   embroider, swash, deepen, lard, pad, magnify, blow, increase, overemphasise, amplifier, gasconade, heighten, boast, shoot a line, vaunt, gas, enlarge, intensify, overemphasize, dramatize, overstress, misinform, aggrandise, puff up, aggrandize, compound, embellish, tout, brag, dramatise, bluster, understate, mislead



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