"trump up" = inflate

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/14/2008 11:04 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>i also suspect that most people here are unfamiliar with the 'inflate,
>blow up, exaggerate' sense of "trump up"; for most of us, it looks
>like an innovation (or a survival, or a previously unencountered
>dialect item).  the comments so far suggest that it's a combo (of some
>sort) of the widespread "trump up" 'invent' and "trumpet", perhaps
>influenced by by some other V+"up" combinations.

"Trumped up excuse/charges" is familiar and not new for me, with the
sense of "invented, exaggerated".  I associate it with the "trump
v.3" of card-playing.

Joel

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