Other forms: understated, understating, understates
To understate is to make something sound smaller than it is. Understate the risk, deliberately understated, to understate it.
Doing it on purpose is a style, and British writing leans on it — saying a disaster was rather unfortunate is understatement working as emphasis. Doing it by accident in a report is a serious fault, since decisions get made on the number given.
1verbunderstateTo make something sound smaller than it is.
“The weather forecast understated how bad the storm would be.”
understate is a saying less.
Proto-Indo-European
*steh₂-
Middle English
stat
English
state
English, today
understate
Built from
From under- + state. state comes from Middle English stat. From Middle English stat (as a noun); adopted c. 1200 from both Old French estat and Latin stātus (“manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses”), from stō (“to stand”). a doublet of estate and status. The sense of "polity" develops in the 14th century. Compare French être, Greek στέω, Italian stare, Portuguese estar, Romanian sta, and Spanish estar. The verb is first attested around the beginning of the 16th century. Related to English stand. Displaced native Old English hād (“state, condition”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA