Hyperbole
Figures of speechDeliberate exaggeration that amplifies reality to make it striking: dying of laughter, a flood of tears.
Example
"I'm starving to death"; "a torrent of insults."
Hyperbole deliberately exaggerates: "dying of shame," "a giant," "I've told you a thousand times." The reader knows the statement is literally false; they understand that the excess is the message — the intensity of the emotion or judgment.
It is the figure of epic, satire and spoken language. In contemporary fiction it often characterizes a voice: a hyperbolic narrator reveals a temperament in every sentence. Its enemy is wear — a hyperbole gone automatic ("awesome," "huge") no longer amplifies anything. Its mirror figure is litotes, which says less to mean more.
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