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litotes

noun/lʌɪˈtəʊtiːz/

C2CEFR level
92/100Rarity: very rare
TechnicalRegister

Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

Saying the meal was 'not bad' when it was superb is a classic use of litotes.

Similar: understatement, meiosis

Origin: From Greek litotes 'plainness', from litos 'simple'.

Topic: figure of speech in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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