tapinosis

Rhetfig: Using as term for an entity that suggests a lesser scope or state. The term may infer positive or negative qualities.

1. Reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes). (Silva Rhetoricae)

1. Giving a name to something which diminishes it in importance. A kind of meiosis. This term is equivalent to meiosis. (Silva Rhetoricae)

2. This differs from Meiosis in that in Meiosis one thing is diminished in order, by contrast, to increase the greatness of another, or something else. Whereas, in Tapeinosis the thing that is lessened is the same thing which is increased and intensified... The figure is used in connection with nouns, verbs, and adverbs,
1. Positively.
2. Negatively.
(Bullinger, 169)

1. Said of the Mississippi River: "a stream"

1. Said of an amputated leg.: "It's just a flesh wound"
—Monty Python and the Holy Grail

2. [Positively:] "Tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury urn away." -Gen. 17:44 We learn from 29:20 that the love which he bore to Rachel is emphasized by speaking of the seven years in which he served for her as "a few days."

2. [Negatively:] They "offered strange fire before the LORD, which he had commanded them not." -Lev. 10:1 Here, the figure is translated. The Heb. is literally, "which the Lord had not commanded them," i.s. He had very solemnly prohibited it... (Bullinger, 171)