Word.ws English Dictionary

misunderstatement

misunderstatement noun: an understatement made by mistake or that is so extremely understated as to be misleading.

Noun

misunderstatement (plural misunderstatements)

  1. An understatement made by mistake or that is so extremely understated as to be misleading.
    • To describe it as naïve would be a flagrant misunderstatement, but its sole purpose is to get laughs, and anyone who doubts its ability to do this has only to be reminded that for eighteen years now, day in and day out, " Aaron Slick " has averaged better than three productions every day.1937, Harper's Magazine - Volume 176, page 389
    • To say that the moratorium imposed by the present administration in Washington has had a disasstrous effect on meeting the housing needs of the elderly would be a gross misunderstatement.1971, United States. Congress. Senate. Special Committee on Aging. Subcommittee on Housing for the Elderly, Adequacy of Federal Response to Housing Needs of Older Americans, page 665

Examples of misunderstatement in a sentence

  • In some ways, I think this is a gross misunderstatement because the Fed really, literally, has unlimited resources.1983, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, International Financial Markets and Related...
  • This first presents as a grand misunderstatement, but let's not be too quick to judge.2007, B. Elwin Sherman, George W. Bush -- On the Trips of His Tongue, page 20:
  • To say that Shawn was not popular in the locker room would be a gross misunderstatement.2009, Aaron Feigenbaum, The Unauthorized History of DX:

Forms of misunderstatement

pluralmisunderstatements

Origin of misunderstatement

From mis- + understatement.

Questions about misunderstatement

What does misunderstatement mean?
Misunderstatement means an understatement made by mistake or that is so extremely understated as to be misleading.
How do you use misunderstatement in a sentence?
In some ways, I think this is a gross misunderstatement because the Fed really, literally, has unlimited resources.
What part of speech is misunderstatement?
Misunderstatement is a noun.
What is the plural of misunderstatement?
The plural of misunderstatement is misunderstatements.

Words near misunderstatement in the dictionary

  1. misunderstandingly
  2. misunderstandings
  3. misunderstands
  4. misunderstate
  5. misunderstated
  6. misunderstatement
  7. misunderstatements
  8. misunderstates
  9. misunderstating
  10. misunderstood
  11. misunderstoodness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misunderstatement (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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