UNDERSTATEMENT Synonyms: 52 Similar and Opposite Words

understatement

noun

Definition of understatement

as in meiosis

Related Words

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Dissimilar Words

as in restraint

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Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of understatement To say McDonald’s lovers are excited would be an understatement. — Molly Burford, Southern Living, 26 Aug. 2026 To say Summer 2026 has been a scorcher would be an understatement. — Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 19 Aug. 2026 Six describes his symptoms, and drug regimen (Oxycodone for the chronic pain), with tough understatement. — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 17 Aug. 2026 To say that it's been a year of turmoil around LIV Golf would be a massive understatement. — Ian Miller Outkick, FOXNews.com, 10 Aug. 2026 See All Example Sentences for understatement

Recent Examples of Synonyms for understatement

Noun

Chromosome pairs are also essential for meiosis, the specialized type of cell division that produces sperm and eggs.

— Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 July 2026
The media business always goes through some splitting of cells — meiosis and mitosis — but every industry leader concedes that consolidation is especially needed today.

— Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 30 June 2026

Definition of meiosis

Noun

Iamaleava could have allowed the disparagement to compound, but the starting signal-caller is using it as fuel for a 2026 season where many have the Bruins painted as a potential dark horse.

— Connor Dullinger, Los Angeles Times, 20 Aug. 2026
Her mother, meanwhile, is backed up by her second husband (Kwon), a mild-mannered documentary filmmaker whose profession gives his wife yet more ammunition in her smiling disparagement of Sanghee.

— Guy Lodge, Variety, 15 Aug. 2026

Definition of disparagement

Noun

Hammer time Rating the severity of Clippers penalties Adam Silver and the NBA finally levied a punishment on the Clippers on Wednesday after 364 days of an investigation into allegations of salary-cap circumvention.

— Zach Harper, New York Times, 4 Sep. 2026
The tone continues to be placid, the plunky marimba and steel drum score remains the same, and the performances only grow to feel even more remarkably lived-in as the severity of the situation clicks into place.

— David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 4 Sep. 2026

Definition of severity

Noun

Her interest in what happened to my body when she was born knows no modesty or fear.

— Miranda Rake, Parents, 25 Aug. 2026
The relentless state media campaign on the issue often cites prayer leaders who insist the hijab is part of Iranian cultural identity and that women should observe modesty.

— Tim Lister, CNN Money, 23 Aug. 2026

Definition of modesty

Noun

The sheer fact of filming fills a frame, even one composed with quasi-documentary plainness, with a plethora of details of narrative, expressive, aesthetic, intellectual, and historical import.

— Richard Brody, New Yorker, 9 July 2026
To understand why men might have adopted a clothing system that prioritized plainness and conformity over color and change, this book investigates the gradual crystallization of this civic uniform of masculinity.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 25 June 2026

Definition of plainness

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“Understatement.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/understatement. Accessed 10 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of understatement

noun

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