Downtoners

Downtoners are words or phrases which reduce the force of another word or phrase. Downtoning is the opposite of emphasising. The most common downtoners are:

a bit	a little bit, a tiny bit	hardly	slightly
a little	barely	(only) just	somewhat

These downtoners are adverbs, and we use them to modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs:

I’m a little bit fed up with George – he’s so selfish. (less strong than I’m fed up with George.)

I think he got slightly upset when we told him the news.

I was barely 16 years old when I joined the army.

You’ll have to speak up. I can only just hear you.

The city has changed somewhat in the last ten years. (somewhat is more formal than the other words in the list.)

Downtoners: using vague language

We use vague language such as kind of…, sort of … or the suffix -ish to reduce the force of a word or phrase:

A:
Are you hungry?

B:
Well, kind of. (less strong than Yes.)

She had a saddish look on her face, I don’t know why. (less strong than She had a sad look on her face.)