Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices

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Etymology of Exaggeration

by Maximillian Levchin

Exaggeration is a word with rich, interesting history. While linguists and historians are still not entirely certain exactly how it entered the English language, various theories exist.
A popular hypothesis is that it is a descendent of Latin exaggerat, meaning «heaped up». Etruscan ehsakkura or ekzakkera is conjectured to mean «sharp heaping bosoms of God», (a direct reference to the specifically Etruscan variation of the creation myth). This root (ex[k]ak) is also found in Latin exactus, Russian oskolok (sharp large part), and the brand name Exacto Knife ® (obvious connections to exact -- sharp, precise, drive out) can be made.
The Etruscan reference to the «divine mammae» in ekzakkera, comes from Akkadian ziggurat or ziqqurat, naming an ancient Mesopotamian temple tower, usually of huge proportions; and also the jargon term for «breasts» used by travelling merchants to describe the «gifts» of courtesans travelling with the caravans.
It is thought that ziggurat in the meaning relevant here was brought into ancient Europe by some of the farther-reaching caravans. The word ziggurat itself accounts for various interesting descendents found in the modern English, cigar and sugar are only two of the well-known ones.
The architecture of a ziggurat involved a relatively small sanctuary on the very top of the pyramidal structure, inaccessible to all community members but the ancient Akkadian priests, and the root zigga has come to mean small, desired, limited-access items.
It is thought that the root zigga (or, originally zigga-zigga) was introduced into the human language sometime around 1700 BC from imitating the sounds made by the now completely extinct bird praemonitus pramunitis (a relative of the common swallow).