1 [C] a statement that makes sth seem less important, impressive, serious, etc. than it really is:
To say we were pleased is an understatement (= we were extremely pleased). * 'These figures are a bit disappointing.' 'That's got to be the understatement of the year.'
2 [U] the practice of making things seem less impressive, important, serious, etc. than they really are:
typical English understatement * He always goes for subtlety and understatement in his movies.
OPPOVERSTATEMENT
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of understatement come from?
This entry for understatement is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is understatement a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, understatement is tagged as noun.
Does understatement appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — understatement appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
