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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
understate
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Even these shocking statistics understate the seriousness of the situation.
▪ I think you are understating the importance to young people of a stable home life.
▪ In the report, the incidence of violent crime is consistently understated.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ First, the agency may seek to expand a given government programme by systematically overstating the benefits or understating the costs.
▪ The risk for the purchaser is that the vendor may have understated the scope and extent of the creditors.
▪ The use of the official rate hugely understates exports and imports, and distorts year-on-year comparisons.
▪ These calculations understate the continuing expansion of sales through multiple retailers, as demonstrated by data from Taylor Nelson Sofres.
▪ They had done this by artificially understating the value of bonds on their books.
▪ To call it a bonanza is to understate the matter significantly.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Understate

Understate \Un`der*state"\, v. t. To state or represent less strongly than may be done truthfully.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
understate

1781, from under + state (v.). Related: Understated; understating.

Wiktionary
understate

vb. 1 To state something with less completeness than needed; to minimise or downplay. 2 To state something with a lack of emphasis, in order to express irony. 3 To state a quantity that is too low.

WordNet
understate

v. represent as less significant or important [syn: minimize, minimise, downplay] [ant: overstate]

Usage examples of "understate".

The impersonal, reportorial quality of the third-person objective point of view works well to suggest ironies of situations and speech, those understated subtleties of discovery and reversal that make for psychological suspense.

Pretty fabrics, porcelain and jade lamps, and the charming country antiques her mother had found added charm, liveliness, understated elegance, and comfort.

Elaine was wearing black velvet pants with a Chinese jacket of blue brocade and looked elegant in an understated way.

It was, as Ehomba put it in his pragmatically understated fashion, now simply a matter of going there.

Negrinus, with a flash of his understated intelligence, looked rueful, as if he knew exactly what I thought.

Verginius Laco, thin, austere and understated, now seemed to be the family leader.

When we had been together, she had been a thin, pale, understated wee thing, with poorly cut mid-brown hair, little or no make-up, and a bad habit of catalogue shopping for clothes.

Like every other invite, the design was understated, the printing was meticulous, and the envelope had her name on it.

Soft clicking testified in understated eloquence to the craftsmanship and deadly precision of another age.

Moments later, it stopped gently in a curving driveway before a gracefully understated jade-stone portico: the sprawling Lordglen House of State.

Crown Prince Leopold exuded an ageless, almost ethereal restraint which, in its own understated manner, stood out like a beacon from all the heavy magnificence of the ornate drawing room.

The single-button chocolate dress suit he wore under his long coat was also understated, but the super-fine material and the tailored cut reeked of money.

Her broad desk was an understated work of art made of real imported blackwood.

His broad shoulders and narrow waist were accentuated by his understated but exceedingly well-cut ankle-length suit coat and knife-edge dress slacks.

Deputy Hanson had already told her about the Smith and Wesson in the glove box, and her understated reprimand was well deserved.