put it mildly

to put it mildly

To underemphasize or downplay something. This phrase is typically used without conjugating the infinitive "to put." A: "Oh, it was just a rain storm." B: "Yeah, to put it mildly. It was more like a hurricane!"
See also: mildly, put
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

put it mildly

Understate, say without exaggeration, as in It's a fairly long way to walk, to put it mildly-twenty miles or so. [First half of 1900s]
See also: mildly, put
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

put it ˈmildly

used for showing that you could have said something much stronger or more critical, etc: He was annoyed, to put it mildly (= he was very angry). ‘She said you didn’t like it.’ ‘That’s putting it mildly — it’s hideous!’
See also: mildly, put
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • to put it mildly
  • to be on the safe side
  • eggs is eggs
  • (one's) best foot forward
  • best foot forward
  • How long is a piece of string?
  • from my cold, dead hands
  • how about
  • how/what about...?
  • (as) sure as eggs (is eggs)
References in periodicals archive
ANYONE who has travelled around in Aberdeen recently can't fail to have noticed that green spaces are looking a little rough around the edges, to put it mildly.
Cringeworthy, to put it mildly, with a dreadful voiceover by Brian Blessed and a host in Dermot O'Leary who is frankly out of his depth.
VinFast aims to eventually build 500,000 cars a year, which is ambitious, to put it mildly, even if it does intend to show both models at the Paris motor show in October.
"I think the Labour Party has to make every seat an all women shortlist until we get equality" - Labour MP Jess Phillips "Vladimir Putin is, to put it mildly, a damned - and dangerous - nuisance" - Sir Bernard Ingham.
So now, relations between David and Max are strained to put it mildly, made worse after Max bad-mouths the Hoff in a newspaper interview.
Sure, he's taken a few wrong turns to put it mildly - but he shouldn't be turfed out."
Our tasting panel of beer geeks and foodies is not the target audience for Lime-a-Rita, to put it mildly. But after a couple of skeptical sips, our tasters gave it a somewhat reluctant thumbs up.
To put it mildly, the public behaviour of this minority is appalling.
Jim West, the disgraced former mayor of Spokane, Wash., had a messy coming-out process in 2005--to put it mildly. A Republican elected official in Washington State for more than 20 years, West was once Washington's most prominent and powerful homophobe.
That didn't deter the Supreme Court from (to put it mildly) "hinting" the opposite; heck, it didn't even deter most parliamentarians who voted that way from talking out of the other side of their mouth now.
"We had a fundraising system in place here for many years that was fairly old and clunky to put it mildly," says Adam Kahan, vice president of University Advancement at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Which is, to put it mildly, not the best way to spend IT dollars.
But Sabine Herold, to put it mildly, is not your typical Frog.
And some, to put it mildly, were concerned: "It clearly suffers from 'Designer Interruptus,' the Latin term for when a designer is given too much leeway...."
``The past year has been hell to put it mildly and I can see no light at the end of it.