Meiosis (figure of speech)

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In rhetoric, meiosis is a figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies that it is lesser in significance or size than it really is. Meiosis is the opposite of auxesis, and is also sometimes used as a synonym for litotes^[1][2][3] The term is derived from the Greek mei-o-o (“to make smaller”, "to diminish").

[edit] Examples

• "The Troubles" as a name for decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
• A lawyer defending a schoolboy who has set fire to his school might call the act of arson a "prank", in this case using meiosis in an attempt to diminish the significance of the act (actually, grand arson) to the level of a harmless joke or minor act of vandalism.
• "The Recent Unpleasantness" used in Southern American idiom to refer to the American Civil War and its aftermath

[edit] See also

• Auxesis
• Figure of speech
• Litotes
• Paradiastole
• Euphemism

[edit] References

• Burton, Gideon O.. Meiosis. Silva Rhetoricae. Retrieved on 2006-12-24.

• Meiosis. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. Retrieved on 2006-12-24.

1. ^ Encarta World English Dictionary (1999)
2. ^ The Times English Dictionary (2000)
3. ^ OED 1st edition