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).
Your Mercedes 500 CS is the cost equivalent of a Volkswagen for you–you’re not exactly poor–it probably didn’t even put a dent in your little piggy bank.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.
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