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Definition of "understate" []

  • To state with less completeness or truth than seems warranted by the facts. (verb-transitive)
  • To express with restraint or lack of emphasis, especially ironically or for rhetorical effect. (verb-transitive)
  • To state (a quantity, for example) that is too low: understate corporate financial worth. (verb-transitive)
  • To give an understatement. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "understate" in a sentence
  • "You spend your life railing against central economic planning, and you need a conspiracy theory to explain why an economic projection was wrong? should be "understate," or "underestimate.""
  • "Most religious switching occurs before the age of thirty, but to the extent that switching also occurs later in life, these comparisons tend to understate the long-term rise in switching, since the cohorts born late in the twentieth century have had less time to switch than those born earlier."
  • "According U.S. government data, China's holdings of Treasury securities totaled $1.159 trillion at the end of May, although those estimates are thought to understate the true total."
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