litotes

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
7
Words With Friends
8
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/laɪˈtəʊ.tiːz/

Definition of litotes

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, rhetoric, uncountable)A figure of speech whereby something is stated by denying its opposite.
    “The delicacy which prompts a later generation to reject that name is by no means necessarily a result of stricter habits, is far more often due to the flatness which comes of untiring repetition and to the greater piquancy of litotes.”
See all 2 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, rhetoric, uncountable)A figure of speech whereby something is stated by denying its opposite.
    “The delicacy which prompts a later generation to reject that name is by no means necessarily a result of stricter habits, is far more often due to the flatness which comes of untiring repetition and to the greater piquancy of litotes.”
  2. (countable, especially, rhetoric, uncountable)A figure of speech whereby something is stated by denying its opposite.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin lītotēs, from Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs, literally “plainness”), from λιτός (litós, “simple”).

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