| 词汇 | understatement |
| 释义 | understatement noun[ S or U ] uk /ˌʌn.dəˈsteɪt.mənt/ us /ˌʌn.dɚˈsteɪt.mənt/ a statement that describes something in a way that makes it seem less important, serious, bad, etc. than it really is, or the act of making such statements: 保守的陈述; 轻描淡写 To say that her resignation was a shock would be an understatement - it caused panic.说她辞职令人震惊过于轻描淡写了——实际上引起了恐慌。 "It didn't go well? " "That's the understatement of the year/decade/century. It was a disaster."事情进展不顺利？“这是本年度／十年来／本世纪最温和的说法。那是场灾难。” Opposites exaggeration overstatement Exaggerating & playing down bloviate blow something out of proportionidiom cartoonish cartoonishly catastrophize fulsome go overboardidiom grandiloquent inflated make a mountain out of a molehillidiom make little of somethingidiom make much of somethingidiom make something of something/someone meal mildly minimization OTT protest too muchidiom underplay underrate understatement | Business Englishunderstatement noun[ C or U ] uk /ˌʌndəˈsteɪtmənt/us a statement that something is much smaller, much less important, or much less serious than it really is: It's an understatement to say the workers are worried about their futures. with understatementThe report says with understatement, 'there is still much scope for reform'. understatement of the century/decade/yearTo say he's been busy would be the understatement of the year. Compareoverstatement Examples of understatementunderstatement In this harmonically very unpretentious movement the composer achieves genuine poetry through understatement and delicate sculpting, especially of the sinuous line for solo alto. To say that the object permanence literature is an unwieldy one is something of an understatement. Otherwise, the editors' claim is that 'it can be used for a wider range of purposes than most conventional grammars', is something of an understatement. Most readers of the book will be convinced that this is a clear understatement. To say that they were lucky is somewhat of an understatement! To brand such "treatment" as subhuman is an understatement. Many of the examples involve irony, sarcasm, satire, understatement, or hyperbole, requiring the listener to figure out what the nonliteral intention of the speaker is. To say that it mediated action between construction and autonomy is an understatement and depends too much on the ambiguous definition of mediation. To call this 'the right man in the right place' is surely going to the extremes of understatement. This qualification was an understatement: the film is utterly depressing. Kearney's note that "to raise these points is to recognise that there were inevitable political overtones to our conference" (251) is surely an understatement. This seems rather an understatement. They tried to correct the systematic understatement of the projected tax subsidies, but were not able to make all of the necessary corrections because of lack of data. Hickson summarised the findings with the cautious understatement that even among families who had suffered serious losses, money may not be the only motivation for filing suit. It is an understatement to say that the confusion and conflict that the problems will create are a lawyer's paradise. From the Hansard archive Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0 These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors. |
| 随便看 |
反思网英语在线翻译词典收录了377474条英语词汇在线翻译词条，基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的中英文双语翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。