inflate

From Latin īnflātus, from the verb īnflō. Doublet of inblow.

• (UK, US) enPR: ĭn-flāt', IPA^(key): /ɪnˈfleɪt/

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• Rhymes: -eɪt

Girl inflating a red balloon by blowing into it.

inflate (third-person singular simple present inflates, present participle inflating, simple past and past participle inflated)

1. (transitive) To enlarge an object by pushing air (or a gas) into it; to raise or expand abnormally

   You inflate a balloon by blowing air into it.

   • 1782, John Scott of Amwell, An Essay on Painting:

     When passion's tumults in the bosom rise, / Inflate the features, and enrage the eyes.

2. (intransitive) To enlarge by filling with air (or a gas).

   The balloon will inflate if you blow into it.

3. (figurative) To swell; to puff up.

   to inflate somebody with pride or vanity

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 137:

     [I]f they find / Some stain or blemish in a name of note, / Not grieving that their greatest are so small, / Inflate themselves with some insane delight, / And judge all nature from her feet of clay, […]

4. (transitive, computing) To decompress (data) that was previously deflated.
5. (figurative, transitive) To misrepresent something as being more important, better, or worse than it actually is; to exaggerate.

   Israel routinely claims that the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas, has a tendency to inflate the number of Palestinian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

• deflate

• inflated
• inflatingly

• inflation

īnflāte

1. vocative masculine singular of īnflātus

īnflātē (comparative īnflātius, superlative īnflātissimē)

1. haughtily, proudly, pompously

• “inflate”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “inflate”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• inflate in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• inflate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

inflate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of inflar combined with te