understatement

American  

[uhn-der-steyt-muhnt, uhn-der-steyt-] / ˌʌn dərˈsteɪt mənt, ˈʌn dərˌsteɪt- /

noun

• understatements
  plural

1. the act or an instance of understating, or representing in a weak or restrained way that is not borne out by the facts.

   The journalist wrote that the earthquake had caused some damage. This turned out to be a massive understatement of the devastation.

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understatement British  

/ ˌʌndəˈsteɪtmənt /

noun

1. the act or an instance of stating something in restrained terms, or as less than it is

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understatement Cultural  

1. A form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is: “Hank Aaron was a pretty good ball player.”

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• understatements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of understatement

under- + statement

Explanation

You make an understatement when you say a lot less than you could. If you say "We didn't do our best" when your team loses 56 to 0, that's quite an understatement. An understatement can be just the thing to make someone feel better. For example, if you are a terrible dancer and everyone seems to be pointing and laughing at you, your friend might say your style is unique. She's not lying, but she is making sad truth easier to deal with. Understatement can also be used humorously — if you have a really difficult, scary experience, you might say, "Well, that was interesting."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

understatement understatements

“There’s lots of new in the Premier League,” chief executive Richard Masters said, with typical English understatement.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

The long-suffering younger Forster described his father, in an understatement, as having “a tendency toward self-love, pride, and a certain scholarly vanity.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

To call him bullish about the technology’s potential would be an understatement.

From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026

England head coach Thomas Tuchel said the delay to their World Cup warm-up game with Costa Rica gave them a "little taste of what can happen" - but will that prove to be an understatement?

From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026

Saying I wasn’t ready for it was an understatement.

From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia

As for the camp factor, many massive understatements in the script will trigger appreciative howls of laughter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025

He still brakes for bad puns and double-negative understatements, but he avoids the kind of under-metabolized research that sometimes alienated his early readers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2025

It was one of the greatest understatements of all time.

From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2025

The rolls are understatements, their sheer bean curd wrappers encasing shrimp, pork, shiitakes and bamboo shoots, everything moistened with a light wash of brown sauce.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 16, 2017

I was kept busy devising plausible confirmation of surprising understatements.

From The Professor's Mystery by Wells Hastings