magnify

What it means

1. transitiveTo praise, glorify (someone or something, especially God).First known use 14th c.

   For they herde them speake with tonges, and magnify God.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts

   2 more examples

   For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best cov'nant of his fidelity […]

   1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC

   Having already described him [the whale] in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Fossil Whale”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 506

   Synonyms: exalt, extol, laud, aggrandize, applaud, enthrone, appraise, belaud

2. transitiveTo make (something) larger or more important.First known use 14th c.

   1 more example

   But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal. This only magnified the indispensable nature of the oligopolists.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion

3. transitiveTo make (someone or something) appear greater or more important than it is; to intensify, exaggerate.First known use 17th c.

In a sentence

For they herde them speake with tonges, and magnify God.

1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts

Where it comes from

1. Latinmagnificāre
2. Middle Frenchmagnifier
3. Middle Englishmagnifien
4. Englishmagnify

From Middle English magnifien, from Middle French magnifier, from Latin magnificāre, from magnificus.

First known use: 14th c.