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In rhetoric, meiosis is a euphemistic figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies that it is lesser in significance or size than it really is. Meiosis is the opposite of auxesis, and also sometimes used as a synonym for litotes.〔Encarta World English Dictionary (1999)〕〔The Times English Dictionary (2000)〕〔OED 1st edition〕 The term is derived from the Greek ''μειόω'' (“to make smaller”, "to diminish"). ==Examples== *"The Troubles" a name for decades of violence in Northern Ireland. *"The Pond" for the Atlantic Ocean ("across the pond"). Similarly, "The Ditch" for the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand. * "The Recent Unpleasantness," used in the 19th century in the southern United States as an idiom to refer to the American Civil War and its aftermath. *A lawyer defending a schoolboy who has set fire to his school might call the act of arson a "prank". In this case using meiosis in an attempt to diminish the significance of the act (technically, grand arson) to the level of a harmless joke or minor act of vandalism. *"Intolerable meiosis!" comments a character in William Golding's ''Fire Down Below'' as their ship encounters an iceberg after another character comments, "We are privileged. How many people have seen anything like this?". *"(Our) Peculiar Institution" for slavery and the economic ramifications of it in the American South. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meiosis (figure of speech)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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