MAGNIFY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Magnify

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/mˈægnəfˌaɪ/ Listen

verb

Magnify v. t. (past & past part. magnified; pres. part. magnifying)

To make great, or greater; to increase the dimensions of; to amplify; to enlarge, either in fact or in appearance; as, the microscope magnifies the object by a thousand diameters. "The least error in a small quantity... will in a great one... be proportionately magnified."

To increase the importance of; to augment the esteem or respect in which one is held. "On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel."

To praise highly; to laud; to extol. (Archaic) "O, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together."

To exaggerate; as, to magnify a loss or a difficulty.

To magnify one's self (Script.), to exhibit pride and haughtiness; to boast.

To magnify one's self against (Script.), to oppose with pride.

Magnify v. i.

To have the power of causing objects to appear larger than they really are; to increase the apparent dimensions of objects; as, some lenses magnify but little.

To have effect; to be of importance or significance. (Cant & Obs.)

See images of 'Magnify'

Etymology of 'Magnify'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Magnify" Quotes from Famous Books

... have just finished 'Carthon.' There are beautiful passages in it, the most beautiful beginning, I think, 'Desolate is the dwelling of Moina,' and the next place being filled by that address to the sun you magnify so with praise. But the charm of these things is the only charm of all the poems. There is a sound of wild vague music in a monotone—nothing is articulate, nothing individual, nothing various. Take ...

— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the laws of Nature in the one object or one combination under your eye, is of course comic to those who do not share the philosopher's perception of identity. To him there was no such thing as size. ...

— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... may be said against my several doctrines by the able men of Europe) humbly present your Majesty with a few other papers upon the same subject, to strengthen, explain, and enlarge the former; hoping by such real arguments, better to praise and magnify your Majesty, than by any other the most specious words and eulogies that can be ...

— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... inconspicuous. In another, like Eastern Japan and the adjoining ocean-bed, the movements are frequent, occasionally almost incessant, and few years pass without some great convulsion by which cities are wrecked and hundreds of human lives are lost. At such times, we magnify the rle of earthquakes, and are in some danger of forgetting that, in the formation of a mountain-chain or continent, they serve no higher purpose than the creaking of a wheel in the complex movements of ...

— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... odium that might seem to attach to the king and his warriors in withdrawing from a combat with such a creature and allowing it, unopposed, to perform its Yule-tide depredations and depart. The saga-man did not intend to be-little Hrolf Kraki; he intended to magnify Bjarki by introducing a monster for him to overcome that it was no shame for other mortals to avoid. Nor is it accidental that the reader is informed of the troll-nature of the dragon in a statement made by Hott to Bjarki. It serves to make it plain that Bjarki also knew ...

— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson

More quotes...