Magnification is the act of making something look bigger than it actually is, or the amount by which something has been enlarged. When you look through a microscope at a drop of pond water, the magnification lets you see tiny organisms swimming around that would be invisible to your naked eye. A magnifying glass provides magnification too, making small print easier to read or letting you examine the details of a butterfly's wing.

Scientists measure magnification with numbers like “10x” or “400x,” which means something appears ten times or four hundred times larger than its actual size. A 10x magnification makes a grain of salt look as big as a small pea. With 400x magnification, that same grain would fill your entire view.

Beyond physical enlargement, people sometimes use magnification to describe making problems seem bigger than they really are. If you get one answer wrong on a quiz and spend all weekend worrying that you're failing the class, you're engaging in the magnification of a small setback. In this sense, magnification means blowing something out of proportion, just like a magnifying glass does with objects.