litotes

See also: Litotes and lítotes

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin lītotēs, from Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs, literally “plainness”), from λιτός (litós, “simple”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /laɪˈtəʊ.tiːz/, enPR: lītō'tēz

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: li‧to‧tes

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

Noun

Examples (figure of speech)
She's not the nicest person I know (She is mean). He's not exactly a rocket scientist (He is stupid). Organizing these records is no small task (It is time-consuming). This isn't too bad (It is good).

litotes (countable and uncountable, plural litotes)

1. (rhetoric) A figure of speech whereby something is stated by denying its opposite.
   1. (especially) The negation of a negative quality to assert a positive.

   Synonyms: antenantiosis, meiosis, moderatour

   Antonym: hyperbole

   Hypernyms: irony, understatement, meiosis

   • 1895, William Congreve, “Introduction”, in G. S. Street, editor, The Comedies of William Congreve‎^[1], volume 1, Methuen and Co.:

     The delicacy which prompts a later generation to reject that name is by no means necessarily a result of stricter habits, is far more often due to the flatness which comes of untiring repetition and to the greater piquancy of litotes.

Derived terms

• litotic
• litotical
• litotically

Translations

rhetoric: stating a point by denying its opposite

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: lítote f
• Czech: litotes m or n
• Dutch: litotes (nl) m or f
• Esperanto: litoto, maltroigo
• Finnish: litoteesi
• French: litote (fr) f
• German: Litotes (de) f
• Greek: λιτότητα (el) (litótita)

  Ancient Greek: λιτότης f (litótēs)

• Ido: litoto (io)
• Irish: liotóid f
• Italian: litote (it) f
• Manx: fo-raa m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: litot m, litotes m

• Polish: litota (pl) f, litotes (pl) m
• Portuguese: litotes (pt) f
• Russian: лито́та (ru) f (litóta)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: литота f

  Latin: litota (sh) f

• Sicilian: lìtuti f, litoti f
• Spanish: litote (es) f, lítotes (es) f, lítote (es) f, litotes (es) f
• Tagalog: makumbaba

See also

• paradiastole
• double negative
• Appendix:Snowclones/not the X-est in the Y

Further reading

• litotes on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Litotes in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Sottile, oil test, toilest, toilets

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /li.tɔt/

Noun

litotes f

1. plural of litote

Latin

Etymology

Etymology tree

Ancient Greek λῑτός (lītós)

Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-ts

Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts

Ancient Greek -της (-tēs)

Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs)bor.

Latin lītotēs

Borrowed from Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈliː.tɔ.teːs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈliː.to.tes]

Noun

lītotēs f (genitive lītotētos); third declension (Late Latin)

1. (rhetoric) litotes (rhetorical understatement)

Declension

Third-declension noun (Greek-type, normal variant).

	singular	plural
nominative	lītotēs	lītotētes
genitive	lītotētos	lītotētum
dative	lītotētī	lītotētibus
accusative	lītotēta	lītotētas
ablative	lītotēte	lītotētibus
vocative	lītotēs	lītotētes

Descendants

• → English: litotes (learned)
• → French: litote (learned)
  • → Russian: лито́та (litóta)
  • → Spanish: litote
• → German: Litotes (learned)
• → Italian: litote (learned)
• → Polish: litotes (learned)

References

• “litotes”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Souter, Alexander (1949), “lītotēs”, in A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D.‎^[2], 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 1957, page 234

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

litotes m (definite singular litotesen, indefinite plural litoteser, definite plural litotesene)

1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by litot

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

litotes m (definite singular litotesen, indefinite plural litotesar, definite plural litotesane)

1. (pre-2005) alternative form of litot

Polish

Etymology

Etymology tree

Ancient Greek λῑτός (lītós)

Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-ts

Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts

Ancient Greek -της (-tēs)

Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs)bor.

Latin lītotēslbor.

Polish litotes

Learned borrowing from Latin lītotēs. Doublet of litota.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.tɛs/
• Rhymes: -ɔtɛs
• Syllabification: li‧to‧tes

Noun

litotes m inan (indeclinable)

1. (rhetoric) litotes (figure of speech whereby something is stated by denying its opposite, particularly the negation of a negative quality to say something positive)

   Synonym: litota

Further reading

• “litotes”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[3] (in Polish)

Portuguese

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin lītotēs, from Ancient Greek λιτότης (litótēs).

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.t͡ʃis/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.t͡ʃis/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.t͡ʃiʃ/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.tes/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /liˈtɔ.tɨʃ/

• Hyphenation: li‧to‧tes

Noun

litotes f (invariable)

1. (rhetoric) litotes (an understatement employed for rhetoric effect)

Further reading

• “litotes”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “litotes”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /liˈtotes/ [liˈt̪o.t̪es]
• Rhymes: -otes
• Syllabification: li‧to‧tes

Noun

litotes f (plural litotes)

1. (uncommon) alternative form of lítote
2. plural of litote

Further reading

• “litotes”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025