Definition

1. Noun:
   • A figure of speech employing deliberate understatement, especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary: Litotes is a rhetorical device used to emphasize a point by stating a positive through the negation of its opposite, often creating an ironic or modest effect.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:
  • The critic's description of the performance as "not bad" was a classic example of litotes.
  • Saying "he's not the friendliest person" to mean he is quite unfriendly is a form of litotes.

Advanced Usage

• As a stylistic device: Litotes is often used in formal writing, literature, and everyday speech to convey modesty, irony, or to soften a statement.
  • Her acknowledgment that the task was "not without its challenges" was a masterful use of litotes to describe a near-disaster.

Variants and Related Words

• Meiosis (n): Another term for understatement, though it can sometimes be used more broadly than litotes.
  • Both litotes and meiosis are forms of rhetorical understatement.

Synonyms

• Understatement: A statement that represents something as less than it is.
• Bathos: While often meaning an anticlimax or descent into the trivial, it can sometimes overlap in creating an effect through deliberate diminishment.

Related Phrases and Idioms

• "Not un-" construction: A common grammatical structure for forming litotes.
  • Describing a situation as "not unimportant" to mean it is very important.

Noun

1. understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary)
   • saying `I was not a little upset' when you mean `I was very upset' is an example of litotes