litotes

noun [ˈlaɪtətiːz]

pronunciation

Editorial team; lemma absent from CMUdict (pipeline/ipa-en.mjs: litotes BRAK); stress from Webster Li\"to*tes plus CMU segment lite L AY1 T (laɪt); confirm with a phonetician; no frequency figure, open source

Litotes names a trope of understatement or softened scale (not bad = good; a citizen of no mean city), foil to hyperbole, unlike lying or plain modesty.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Definitions

ling. / rhet. Rhetorical figure: speech openly lowers or softens scale against reality (not bad, hardly a trifle, a citizen of no mean city). Axis: deliberate understatement inside the trope, not a factual fault, not hyperbole as the opposite scale move, and not plain modesty without a figure.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
hist. lex. Webster 1913 prints LITOTES (stress Li\"to*tes) plus a rhetorical gloss; example: a citizen of no mean city. Arct 1921: no Litota (Litotomja / Litotrypsja are surgery). Skeat 1910 and Brückner 1927: no card. Polish pair: litota.

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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (LITOTES Li\"to*tes; NL., fr. Gr.); W. W. Skeat 1910 (no litotes/litote); M. Arct 1921 (no Litota; Litotomja / Litotrypsja); A. Brückner 1927 (absent), open source
hist. / rhet. Webster also indexes MEIOSIS (Mei*o\"sis) as diminution; a species of hyperbole, representing a thing as being less than it really is. Meiosis is a terminological neighbour of litotes in English rhetoric; scope of the relation needs review. Facts here; derivation under etymology.

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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (MEIOSIS Mei*o\"sis; LITOTES), open source
colloq. Casual speech may dump any soft phrasing under this tag or under plain modesty. This card keeps one rhetorical axis: deliberate scale softening inside a figure, foil to hyperbole and apart from lying.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Examples

Not bad for an obvious success is textbook litotes (scale lowering in the trope); a neighbour wrongly slotted hyperbole into the same drill.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
The morning session drilled litotes; hyperbole notes returned as the scale foil, and meiosis (Webster) stood beside as an English-rhetoric neighbour term.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Reading list: Webster 1913 for LITOTES (Li\"to*tes) and MEIOSIS, Skeat 1910 (gap at litotes), Arct 1921 (no Litota; surgical Litotomja / Litotrypsja must not be confused), Brückner 1927 (gap).

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Treating every litotes as plain modesty erased the deliberate-trope-versus-mere-reserve split at once.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Board order: litotes, hyperbole, metaphor, lying, so the understatement trope stayed apart from overstatement, from likeness transfer, and from deceit.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Usage

Casual notes may brand any soft phrasing as litotes with no named axis. Seminar work peels layers: deliberate scale lowering inside the trope (not bad, hardly trivial, a citizen of no mean city), hyperbole as foil, the border with metaphor, plus lexicon notes. Webster keeps LITOTES with stress Li\"to*tes and a separate MEIOSIS card as diminution. Skeat offers no litotes entry. Arct skips Litota (surgical Litotomja / Litotrypsja belong to another family). Brückner offers no Polish card. Without those layers only a hollow slogan about modesty remains.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Open-book record: the 1913 Webster shows LITOTES with primary stress on Li and describes a diminution or softening of statement, citing a citizen of no mean city as illustration; the etymology line reads New Latin from Greek (Rhet.). MEIOSIS (Mei*o\"sis) stands apart as diminution; a species of hyperbole. In Skeat (1910) neither litotes nor litote appears. Arct (1921) skips Litota, while Litotomja and Litotrypsja belong to surgery. Brückner 1927 leaves litota out. Facts here; derivation under etymology.

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Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (LITOTES; MEIOSIS); W. W. Skeat 1910 (absent); M. Arct 1921 (no Litota); A. Brückner 1927 (absent), open source

Scholarly English marks deliberate understatement inside a figure. Careful writers reject worksheets that treat every soft phrase as litotes and reject glosses that never name the scale softening. The litotes / hyperbole border remains debated in seminars. Meiosis (Webster) is a terminological neighbour. Chronology of the label stays blank until a primary page appears. Polish counterpart: litota (SGJP present).

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Classrooms revisit understatement talk in tropes and set litotes against hyperbole, metaphor, rhetoric, and semantics. CMUdict has no litotes lemma (editorial IPA built on Webster Li\"to*tes with the CMU segment lite). Polish litota sits in SGJP. Already live: hyperbole, metaphor, oxymoron, irony, metonymy, synecdoche, rhetoric, semantics, synonym, antonym. Without the deliberate-softening axis the tag collapses.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (LITOTES; MEIOSIS); CMUdict (litotes absent; lite L AY1 T present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (litota present), open source

Word forms

Scholarly countable or mass in notes: one instance of litotes, many uses of litotes (often treated as mass). Related term in Webster: meiosis. No separate CMU lemma for litotes.

forms in use

przypadek	forma
singular / mass	litotes
plural note	litotes (often unchanged; confirm at review)
neighbour term	meiosis (Webster 1913)

Word forms: Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (LITOTES; MEIOSIS); CMUdict (litotes absent) · source

Collocations

rhetorical litotes

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
litotic understatement

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
litotes versus hyperbole

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
scale softening in the trope

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
distinguish litotes from plain modesty

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms understatement figure (loose descriptive neighbour; check scope at review), litotic trope (approximation; check scope at review), meiosis (Webster neighbour term; check scope of relation at review), litota (Polish counterpart; SGJP present; check scope at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Antonyms hyperbole / overstatement (scale contrast: raising instead of lowering; check scope at review), literal naming without a trope (contextual contrast; not a clean antonym of the label alone), lying as deceit (contrast neighbour: intent to deceive, not open trope softening; check at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Etymology

English litotes rests on the New Latin label recorded in Webster under LITOTES (NL., fr. Gr.). Webster marks stress Li\"to*tes. The open-book trail is mostly presence or gap: Webster 1913 keeps the lemma including a citizen of no mean city, and separately MEIOSIS (Mei*o\"sis) as diminution in rhetoric. The etymological and foreign-word volumes we checked stay quiet at litotes/litota: Skeat 1910, Arct 1921 (no Litota; surgical Litotomja / Litotrypsja are another family), and Brückner 1927. We do not copy dictionary wording. Polish counterpart: litota.

source

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (LITOTES: Li\"to*tes; NL., fr. Gr.; MEIOSIS), open source

also

W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (no litotes / litote), open source

also

M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (no Litota; Litotomja / Litotrypsja = surgery, not the trope), open source

also

A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (no litota), open source

Related words

hyperbole , foil along the scale axis (overstatement); EN pair already live
metaphor , foil along the likeness axis; EN pair already live
oxymoron , trope neighbour (contrary pair); EN pair already live
irony , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
metonymy , contiguity neighbour; EN pair already live
synecdoche , part-whole trope neighbour; EN pair already live
rhetoric , domain of tropes; EN pair already live
semantics , sense and transfer neighbour; EN pair already live
synonym , near-sense unit without a trope axis; EN pair already live
antonym , opposed-sense unit (in the lexicon, not inside one trope); EN pair already live
litota , Polish counterpart (SGJP present; Webster LITOTES; Arct gap)

Related entries

The same entry in Polish: litota

Questions and answers

What does litotes mean?

It names a trope where speech deliberately softens scale (not bad, a citizen of no mean city). Hyperbole is the opposite scale move. Lying is deceit, not a figure. Plain modesty without a figure is not litotes. Meiosis is a Webster neighbour term.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Where does the word litotes come from?

From Greek through New Latin. Webster 1913 indexes LITOTES; stress Li\"to*tes. Skeat stays quiet (1910). Arct has no Litota in 1921 (surgical Litotomja / Litotrypsja are another family). Brückner 1927 stays quiet. Webster also keeps MEIOSIS as a neighbour.

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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (LITOTES; MEIOSIS); W. W. Skeat 1910 (absent); M. Arct 1921 (no Litota); A. Brückner 1927 (absent), open source

How is litotes pronounced, and which forms belong with it?

CMUdict has no litotes lemma. Editorial IPA /ˈlaɪtətiːz/ follows Webster stress Li\"to*tes and the CMU segment lite (L AY1 T); confirm with a phonetician. Forms: litotes (often mass); neighbour meiosis. Confirm at review.

source

Editorial team; facts: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs (litotes BRAK; lite L AY1 T); Webster 1913 (LITOTES Li\"to*tes), open source

How does litotes differ from hyperbole and lying, and does Polish litota match?

Litotes: deliberate scale softening in the figure. Hyperbole: open scale stretch. Lying: deceit. Polish litota matches the rhetorical sense (SGJP present). Notes draw borders; casual speech blurs them with plain modesty.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)