exaggerate
v.to describe something as bigger, better, or worse than it really is. You do this to make a story more exciting or to make a point more strongly.
v.to represent something as being larger, greater, better, or worse than it is in reality. Transitive — requires a direct object.
“He tends to exaggerate how much money he makes.”
“The newspaper was accused of trying to exaggerate the danger of the storm to sell more copies.”
“While the witness did not lie about the events, the prosecutor argued that she chose to exaggerate the defendant's level of aggression to influence the jury.”
The verb is transitive and takes a direct object. It is often used in the passive voice when discussing claims or reports.
Exaggerate is a transitive verb; it takes a direct object and does not require the preposition 'about'.
Usage greatly exaggerate
“Parents often naturally exaggerate vowel sounds when they speak to babies: for example, saying "sheep" with a clearer "eee" sound that stands out.”
“In climate data, "noise" refers to short-erm temperature changes that can temporarily hide or exaggerate the underlying trend.”
Borrowed from Latin exaggerātus, perfect passive participle of exaggerō (“to heap up, increase, enlarge, magnify, amplify, exaggerate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ex- (“out, up”) + aggerō, aggerāre (“to heap up”), from agger (“a pile, heap, mound, dike, mole, pier, etc.”), from aggerō, aggerere (“to bear, carry to (some place), bring together”), from ad- (“to, toward”) + gerō (“to carry”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.