meiosis

A figure of speech whereby something is made to seem smaller or less important than it actually is.

I knew, with one of those secret knowledges that can exist between two people, that her suicide was a direct result of my having told her of my own attempt – I had told it with a curt meiosis that was meant to conceal depths; and she had called my bluff one final time.

Cell division of a diploid cell into four haploid cells, which develop to produce gametes.