litotes
You probably use litotes every day. Ever say "This dessert isn't bad" to mean "It's pretty good"? Or "Our teacher wasn't in the best mood today" to mean "He was really grouchy"? Well, those are examples of litotes — a way of saying something by saying what it's not.
Beware using litotes too often, especially in written form. George Orwell, who had a lot to say about the misuses of language, once suggested that a good cure for the excessive use of the "not un-" format (a classic litotes), as in "a not unintelligent person," was to memorize the following sentence: "A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field." It usually does the trick.
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understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary)“saying `I was not a little upset' when you mean `I was very upset' is an example of litotes”synonyms: meiosistype of:understatementa statement that is restrained in ironic contrast to what might have been saidrhetorical devicea use of language that creates a literary effect (but often without regard for literal significance)
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Vocabulary lists containing litotes
One of the stumbling blocks when trying to study poetry is that it seems like a different world. Familiar things, like words, are put to unfamiliar use, and there is an entire descriptive vocabulary that is completely foreign and quite often puzzling. This list seeks to explain the words used to describe poetry through examples from famous poems. Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, "If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry," but we are willing to take that risk to make the world of literary analysis a little clearer and further illuminate the mystery of poetry.
From alliteration to zeugma, this list covers the literary devices you need to know in order to understand and analyze poetry. To learn even more about poetry, explore our lists on Genre and Structure and Meter.
You'll be able to express yourself with style once you learn these rhetorical devices and tropes. This vocabulary list covers a wide range of techniques used in formal speech and writing, from alliteration to zeugma.