hyperbole [LME] Hyperbole, meaning exaggerated speech, comes via Latin from Greek huperbole ‘exaggeration’ formed from hyper ‘over, above, beyond’ and ballein ‘to throw’. Hyper- is a very productive combining form in English, giving us everything from hyperactive [M19th] to hypermarket [L20th], from hypersensitive [L19th] to hypersonic [M20th]. Its opposite, hypo- ‘under, beneath, less than’, is also very productive, giving us words such as hypodermic [M19th] (‘under skin’ from Greek derma ‘skin’), hyphen [E17th] literally ‘under one’, because in ancient Greek the mark was put under the letters, and hypochondria [LME], literally ‘under the cartilage (of the breast bone)’, referring to the liver which was thought to be the source of melancholy, the original sense of the word. It did not become ‘anxiety about health’ until the late 19th century.