Understatement for effect

• Figure of speech like "no mean feat"
• Little child in stories making understatement
• Literary understatement
• using ___: “Mary had no giant lamb / Its fleece was not unwhite”
• "Not too bad" for "very good"
• 'Not unhappy,' e.g
• Figure of speech that employs ironic understatement

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
n. 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" [syn: meiosis ]

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (context rhetoric English) A figure of speech in which the speaker emphasizes the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite; a figure of speech in which understatement is used with negation to express a positive attribute; a form of irony