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The first known mention of litotes is in a letter from Cicero in 55 BC . Cicero uses the word to mean simplicity (or frugality) of life. The meaning and the function of the word changed from 'simple' to the idea of understatement that involves double negatives, a way to state things simply. Old Norse had several types of litotes. These points ...
The French actress Sarah Bernhardt was considered insufficiently understated in English terms. Photograph by Félix Nadar, c. 1864. This attitude of understatement was exemplified by a comment upon Sarah Bernhardt's violent depiction of Cleopatra in the 1891 play of that title: "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!"
Understatement often leads to litotes, rhetorical constructs in which understatement is used to emphasize a point. It is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures. For example, in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit."
Understatement – a form of irony, sometimes in the form of litotes, in which something is represented as less than it really is, with the intent of drawing attention to and emphasizing the opposite meaning. Universal audience – an audience consisting of all humankind. Utterance – statement that could contain meaning about one's own person.
Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. [1]Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes.
Irony – Creating a trope through implying the opposite of the standard meaning, such as describing a bad situation as "good times". Litotes – A figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect.
Innuendo: having a hidden meaning in a sentence that makes sense whether it is detected or not. Irony: use of word in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning. [18] Kenning: using a compound word neologism to form a metonym. Litotes: emphasizing the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite.
With the meaning "I completely agree", Lowth would have been referring to litotes wherein two negatives simply cancel each other out. However, the usage of intensifying negatives and examples are presented in his work, which could also imply he wanted either usage of double negatives abolished.