[
UK
/lˈɪtəʊts/
]
NOUN
-
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
How To Use litotes In A Sentence
- Yet this definition fails to explain instances of litotes, or understatement, which is often classified as a kind of irony.
- At first called litotes or meiosis, such understatement came to be called irony, at least by the end of the sixteenth century. IRONY
- I'm not obscenely uneducated, but I had to look up "litotes". Steve Janke and dead, sodomized hookers? Hey, I'm just sayin'.
- Concerning the classification of enantiosis in rhetoric, the theoretical definitions of " litotes " and "irony" are somewhat different from the people's perception.
- Next thing you know, they'll be using dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and… satire.
- V. -- I pardon this epitrope, but pray use less metaphor and more litotes in the prosopography you dedicate to my modest entity -- Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
- Belated kudos to ricky p., on that splendid "litotes" analogy. Your Right Hand Thief
- Concerning the classification of enantiosis in rhetoric, the theoretical definitions of " litotes " and "irony" are somewhat different from the people's perception.
- But, if we follow Schwarzbach, Dickens's description of the street mire in Holborn is, if anything, understated - ‘mud’ is not hyperbole, but litotes.
- They could be employing the subtle literary device of "litotes". A tidying-up exercise