embiggen

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

Big + em- -en, prebilabial intensifying verbal circumfix. The occurrence of the verb embiggen in the 1884 publication Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc and its occurrence in Lisa the Iconoclast, a 1996 episode of The Simpsons, are most probably unrelated, the word having likely been instead coined independently. However, by the same process, later appearances of this word are probably related to the 1996 neologism.

[edit] Pronunciation

(RP) IPA: /ɛmˈbɪgə̆n/

[edit] Verb

Infinitive
to embiggen

Third person singular
embiggens

Simple past
embiggened

Past participle
embiggened

Present participle
embiggening

to embiggen (third-person singular simple present embiggens, present participle embiggening, simple past and past participle embiggened)

(nonce) To make or become bigger.
- 1884, C.A. Ward, "New Verbs", in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, volume 10, page 135:
  
  Are there not, however, barbarous verbs in all languages? ἀλλ' ἐμεγάλυνεν αυτοὺς ὁ λαός, but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything.
- 1996, Dan Greaney, The Simpsons, episode 3F13: “Lisa the Iconoclast”, credits, beneath the statue of Jebediah Springfield:
  
  A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
- 2006 November 22, Riccardo Argurio, Matteo Bertolini, Sebastián Franco, and Shamit Kachru, Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking, published 2007 January 23, pages 24^{1} and 26^{2}:
  
  ^{1} For large P, the three-form ﬂuxes are dilute, and the gradient of the Myers potential encouraging an anti-D3 to embiggen is very mild.
  
  ^{2} While in both cases for P anti-D3-branes the probe approximation is clearly not good, in the set up of this paper we could argue that there is a competing effect which can overcome the desire of the anti-D3s to embiggen, namely their attraction towards the wrapped D5s.