Understatement

Semantically hyperbole is opposed to the understatement. (недоговоренность, преуменьшение). If hyperbole is defined as a deliberate overstatement of some feature or quality, or even quantity, the understatement is the opposite - it’s the deliberate turning down of some quality which is basically neutral. E.g. a situation after some banquet where young people, say, “the cream of society” let themselves go (дать себе волю, разойтись), and there was a kind of fight because one of the guys poured clam juice (сок мидий) down the back of a girl. And she was “just a little annoyed” as another girl put it. So this is a sort of understatement.

Another word for these understatements is litotes. We’ll come across it later when we look at lexico-syntactical SD.

So understatement does not signify the actual state of affairs in reality, but presents the latter through the emotionally coloured perception and rendering of the speaker.

English is well known for its preference for understatement in everyday speech . “I’m rather annoyed” instead of “I’m infuriated”, “The wind is rather strong” instead of “There is a gale blowing outside” are typical of British polite speech, but are less characteristic of American English. I think you remember the scene in the film when Winifred (Soames’ sister) exclaimed “It’s not so good!” after her furniture had been taken because of Dartie’s debts.