Inflate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɪnˈfleɪt/

Definitions

1. To fill something with air or gas until it expands ; to cause something to grow in size or amount ; to artificially raise prices or values beyond normal levels
2. To blow air into an object causing it to swell ; to make something larger or more numerous ; to push prices or values up unfairly
3. To inject air or gas into something to enlarge it ; to increase the dimensions or quantity of something ; to boost prices or values artificially often beyond fair market levels

Etymology: The verb comes from Latin "inflare," meaning to blow into or onto something, built from "in-" (into) and "flare" (to blow). Its past participle "inflatus" gave English the root we use today, and the Latin verb is one of several classical words for breathing life or air into a thing. The English verb has a plain physical origin: blowing air into a bag, bladder or tyre until it swells. The figurative senses grew out of that image. Once something can be swelled with air, it can also be swollen in size or number, so people began to speak of inflating a fortune, a list or an estimate. The sense of pushing prices or values upward followed the same pattern, treating money as something that can be pumped up beyond its real worth. Inflate is a doublet of "inblow," a less common English word that came from the same Latin source by a separate route. The two forms show that English took the idea of blowing into something twice, and only one version survived as the everyday word.

Synonyms: expand, blow up, fill, puff up, enlarge

Antonyms: deflate, shrink, compress, contract, reduce