Litotes Examples

Litotes - understatement that uses a negation to express a positive. In other words, a statement is made about what is - by saying what is not.

1. You won't be sorry!

2. The casserole wasn't too bad.

3. The trip was not a total loss.

4. I cannot disagree with your point.

5. Karen is not unlike her father.

6. The game is not likely to be rained out.

Examples of Litotes from Literature and Film

1. "Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?" Ferris Bueller's Day Off

2. "I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will make them honored, and they shall not be small." Correctly interpreted, he is saying "there will be many and they will be great or large." Jeremiah 30, The Bible

3. "I can't get no satisfaction." The Rolling Stones

4. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116"