Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rhetoric Tapinosis.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • After the Auancer followeth the abbaser working by wordes and sentences of extenuation or diminution.

    The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

  • These and such other base wordes do greatly disgrace the thing & the speaker of writer: the Greekes call it [Tapinosis] we the [abbaser].

    The Arte of English Poesie 1569

  • After the auancer followeth the abbaser working by wordes and sentences of extenuation or diminution.

    The Arte of English Poesie 1569

Comments

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  • Giving a name to something which diminishes it in importance. Like calling the Mississippi River a "stream". Also known as tapinosis. (Silva Rhetoricae)

    May 17, 2008

  • I think I'll only understand this, whichbe, if you mean calling it a "stream".

    May 17, 2008

  • See also disphemism.

    May 17, 2008