"trump up" = inflate

[Mark Mandel]

> 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).

Yes, that's new ("Wrong! Wrong!" shouts the voice inside) to me.

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
wrote in reply:
>  "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.

I associate it with "trumpery" .

--
Mark Mandel

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