Other forms: understatements
An understatement is saying less than the case deserves. A masterly understatement, that is an understatement, British understatement.
Saying it was a bit windy about a hurricane is understatement, and the gap between the words and the facts is the whole effect. It is strongly associated with British speech, where it works as humour, as modesty and occasionally as evasion. To say the least marks it explicitly. Note litotes, the rhetorical term for understating by denying the opposite — not bad, meaning very good.
1noununderstatementSaying less than the case deserves.
“To say he was annoyed would be an understatement; he was furious.”
understatement is a way of speaking.
Under plus statement, or understate plus -ment, from the nineteenth century. It is a plain English compound for a habit English is famous for.
From under + statement or understate + ment.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA