litotes

1. 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”

   Synonymsmeiosis

   Broaderrhetorical deviceunderstatement

Other forms of litotes

plural

litoteses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about litotes

What does litotes mean?

litotes means "understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary)".

How many syllables are in litotes?

litotes has 2 syllables: lito-tes. The stress falls on "lito".

What is another word for litotes?

Close synonyms include meiosis. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is litotes a common word?

litotes is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.