understatement
- 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.
Origin of understatement
Examples from the Web for understatement
Contemporary Examples of understatement
That may sound like the understatement of the century, and maybe it is.
And considering his massive music-industry thumb print, that “you oughta know” Jack Antonoff is an understatement.
To say that the past few years have been a watershed period of improvement for LGBT America is an understatement.
To say that actress Lee Grant has seen it all would be an understatement.
To say that the aftermath has been messy would be an understatement.
Historical Examples of understatement
The dryness in his tone was a paragraph of comment on my understatement.
Lone Star PlanetHenry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
He had made an understatement when he talked about "those people" dying.
Greener Than You ThinkWard Moore
Taken literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts and wholly insincere.
PenrodBooth Tarkington
This is what the habit of understatement may bring us down to,—absolute inadequacy.
Human IntercoursePhilip Gilbert Hamerton
Many times was an understatement, Latham thought wretchedly.
One Purple Hope!Henry Hasse
understatement
- the act or an instance of stating something in restrained terms, or as less than it is
Word Origin and History for understatement
understatement
A form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is: “Hank Aaron was a pretty good ball player.”