Definition, Meaning & Synonyms | English word UNDERSTATEMENT

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Definitions of UNDERSTATEMENT

1. An incomplete disclosure that intentionally withholds relevant information.
2. (uncountable, figure of speech) A figure of speech whereby something is made to seem smaller or less important than it actually is, either through phrasing or lack of emphasis, often for ironic effect.
3. (countable) An instance of such phrasing or lack of emphasis; an incomplete statement.

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Examples of Using UNDERSTATEMENT in a Sentence

• A form of understatement, litotes can be in the form of meiosis, and is always deliberate with the intention of emphasis.
• graceful, charming, and elegant," yet accurately predicted, in a severe understatement of what actually happened, that the book "may start (an) uproar.
• According to the railway historian Micheline Nilsen, the decision not to proceed with the redevelopment has been typically attributed to Haussmann and his personal displeasure that the city would have to bear such great expense on behalf of the Gare du Nord, and that Haussmann's overall attitude led to a pronounced understatement of the railways.
• The phrase also implies polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and self-deprecation.
• " Rolling Stones Barry Walters was adamant of the instrumentation throughout the album, saying that it follows "modern-rock-radio conventions" but said that "the singing's understatement and harmonic sophistication help the band transcend overblown corporate rock and embrace sensitive emo pop.
• In fact, Dubhaltach's only remark thought to be connected with this time is what Ó Muraíle calles a "breathtaking understatement" that Dubhaltach writes in the Díonbhrollach (preface):.
• " In his review for The Observer, Mark Kermode wrote: "As for Regina King, her brilliantly modulated performance is a masterclass in physical understatement.
• In his preface of Voce dietro la scena: Un'antologia personale, Mario Praz shows his peculiar irony and understatement in reporting cases of misquotations and misinterpretations of his studies or his personality abroad.
• Creative literature (as opposed to technical writing or objective journalism) in general hinges on the artful use of a wide range of devices (such as inference, metaphor, understatement, the unreliable narrator, and ambiguity) that reward the careful reader's appreciation of subtext and extrapolation of what the author chooses to leave unsaid, untold, and/or unshown.
• insurer, GEICO, a "kraken" emerges from a golf course water hazard during a televised tournament, its tentacles writhing and grasping a golfer and his caddy, as the commentators intone with characteristic understatement that the sea monster looks like a kraken.
• It's a heartbreaker, surpassing most of Brucie's recent chest-beating in its soulful understatement.
• The Go-Betweens are fine, basically, for their sense of understatement and this knack they have of translating a resigned shrug to music.
• He details aspects of timing, forbearance, approach, surprise, participation, association, disassociation, crossroads, personalization, bland withdrawal, apparent withdrawal, apparent runner-up, omission, reversal, mosaic, and understatement.
• " He praised Amy Adams, saying the "screen magic" she displays "hasn't been this intense since the heyday of Jean Arthur", and he noted that Frances McDormand achieved her "metamorphosis from glum stoicism to demure radiance with impressive comic understatement.
• " Chicago Sun-Times critic Don McLeese stated that it "confirms that the music of Los Lobos has deeper dimensions than the good-time revivalism of 'La Bamba'"; in Rolling Stone, McLeese noted the album's "simplicity and understatement" and summarized it as "a bringing-it-all-back-home affair" which "finds a spiritual dimension, a sense of wonder in the course of everyday life.
• Bucchino’s trickling, self-effacing score to the tight-lipped stoicism of its leading performances, from David Gallo’s tidy tenement-scape set to Zachary Borovay’s tentative photographic projections, this show is all pale, tasteful understatement that seems to be apologizing for asking for your attention.
• Storrs is credited with a classic example of British understatement when referring to the behaviour of the British toward the many tribal and regional leaders that the British were trying to influence in "The Great Game": "we deprecated the imperative, preferring instead the subjunctive or even, wistfully, the optative mood".
• Much as The Station Agent nimbly evaded the obstacles of cuteness and willful eccentricity it had strewn in its own path, so does The Visitor, with impressive grace and understatement, resist potential triteness and phony uplift.
• In the work is present the author's typical parodistic opening where he uses sophisticated detachment and understatement to make the sad fate of a child at the hands of his nurse seem tragicomic.
• In his summing-up jury instructions, the judge suggested "you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time".

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