Supersize means to make something much larger than its normal size, especially food portions at restaurants. The word became famous in the 1990s when fast-food chains started offering customers the option to upgrade their meals to extra-large sizes for a small additional cost. Instead of a regular order of fries and a medium drink, you could supersize your meal and get enormous portions of both.

The word quickly spread beyond restaurants. People now use supersize to describe making anything dramatically bigger. A company might supersize its warehouse to handle more products. A city might supersize its stadium to fit more fans. When someone talks about supersized ambitions, they mean goals that are much bigger than average.

The word often carries a hint of excess: something supersized is larger than most people really need. A supersized portion of French fries might contain three or four times what a normal serving would include. While the word itself is neutral, it frequently appears in discussions about whether bigger is always better, especially when it comes to food and consumption.