Abbaser [George] Puttenham’s English term for tapinosis. Also equivalent to meiosis: reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes: deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite).
His hand blown off by the bomb blast, according to the news reporter in Ankara, my friend was “injured.” He isn’t injured, he is maimed for life.
Oh yeah news idiot, he was “injured” by the bomb blast, just like the woman who was standing next to him. Blown to bits, let’s call her terminally wounded.
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Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.
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