Understated

How to spell understated

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce understated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does understated mean?

1. adjectivePresented in a subtle, restrained way rather than being showy or exaggerated.
2. verbPast tense of understate: described something as smaller or less significant than it truly is.

Understated in a sentence

• adjective

  The hotel lobby had an understated elegance that impressed every guest.

• verb

  The contractor badly understated the cost, and the final bill was double the quote.

• adjective

  She wore an understated grey suit to the interview rather than anything bold.

• verb

  The manager understated the risk in the early meetings, so nobody prepared properly.

Where does understated come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the everyday compound verb 'understate', which joins the native English prefix 'under-', meaning 'below' or 'less than enough', to the verb 'state'. The verb 'state' itself traces back to the Latin 'status', meaning 'condition' or 'manner of standing', which reached English through Old French and was first used to mean simply 'to declare formally'. By the seventeenth century English speakers were combining it with 'under-' to mean 'to describe something as smaller, milder or less important than it really is'. The adjective 'understated', meaning pleasingly restrained rather than showy, developed later from that same idea of deliberately holding back. The spelling is reassuringly transparent once you see the two whole words inside it: 'under' plus 'stated', with no doubled or silent letters to trip you up.

How the word is built

• under- (below, less than)
• state (from Latin status, condition)
• -d (past participle/adjective ending)