Aggrandizement

an act or instance of , or increasing in size, or intensity:
aggrandizement of mercantile trade in the early colonies.
the act of making something appear greater than is actually warranted by the facts:
some saw it as ego aggrandizement.
expansion of power, wealth, rank, or honor:
the department was used for the aggrandizement of its leaders.
historical examples

an ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his const-tuents.
the federalist papers alexander hamilton, john jay, and james madison

the old kittredge had sought only his own aggrandizement, and his son was his son.
in a little town rupert hughes

the aggrandizement which they have brought to the nineteenth century has not waterloo as its source.
les misrables victor hugo

but what if the path of aggrandizement be also the path of safety?
current history, a monthly magazine new york times

on that system of aggrandizement there was but one mind: but two violent factions arose about the means.
the works of the right honourable edmund burke, vol. v. (of 12) edmund burke

for not so much to his own strength as to your laziness does he owe his present aggrandizement.
museum of antiquity l. w. yaggy

it will be never used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own.
england, canada and the great war louis-georges desjardins

and in this comedy of aggrandizement the puppets were willing—as puppets must needs be.
under the rose frederic stewart isham

napoleon schemed for his own aggrandizement, but above him was a power which directed his efforts.
studies in the out-lying fields of psychic science hudson tuttle

the wars in which this system was evolved were wars for prestige and aggrandizement.
encyclopaedia britannica, 11th edition, volume 14, slice 5 various

n.

1650s, from french agrandiss-m-nt, noun of action from agrandir (see aggrandize).