Little child in stories making understatement

• Literary understatement
• Understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary)
• "Not too bad" for "very good"
• Understatement for effect
• Toilets revolting; and that's an understatement
• T S Eliot's quirky figure of speech
• Figure of speech that employs ironic understatement

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

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
In rhetoric , litotes (, or ) is a figure of speech wherein understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect. For example, "She's not bad looking" could be used ...

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 ]