Transitive
verb.
Etymology: it is analysed into UNDER- + STATE, from Latin status, and, this one, from stare (= to stand).
Preterite tense: understated. Preterite
participle: understated.
Present participle:
understating.
It is dated from
the beginning of 1800.
Definition: to state or designate (something) with inexactness (or untrueness), as if it were
inferior to what is true or correct; to make an
understatement of; to refer to (something) as less than it is.
Translation: declarer con inexactitud y por debajo de
lo que es verdadero, in Spanish; dichiarare con inesattezza e sotto ciò che è vero, in Italian; déclarer avec inexactitude et sous ce qui est vrai, in French.
Antonyms: to exaggerate, overstate.
[…]
Fanny Burney had understated her age by no less than ten
years.
John Forster… The Life… of Oliver 1854
[…] the estimate we have made is greatly
deficient, and […] we have understated the real statistics.
George Fitzhugh… Cannibals
all 1857
Croker
is a man who will go a hundred miles on the top of a coach through sleet and
snow, merely to search a parish register in order to prove that a man is
illegitimate, or that a lady has slightly understated her age.
The Living Age ..., Volumen 55 1857
It
is commonly asserted, and as commonly believed, that there are seventy thousand
persons in London who rise every morning without the slightest knowledge as to
where they shall lay their heads at night. However the number may be over or understated, it is very certain that a
vast quantity of people are daily in the above-mentioned uncertainty regarding
sleeping accommodation, and that when night approaches, a great majority solve
the problem in a somewhat (to themselves) disagreeable manner, by not going to
bed at all.
George Sala… Gaslight and Daylight 1859
Word derived from UNDERSTATE: understatement.
