make light of

1. Also, make little of. Treat as unimportant, as in He made light of his allergies, or She made little of the fact that she'd won. The first term, which uses light in the sense of “trivial,” was first recorded in William Tyndale's 1526 Bible translation (Matthew 22:5), in the parable of the wedding feast, where the invited guests reject the king's invitation: “They made light of it and went their ways.” The variant dates from the early 1800s. For an antonym, see make much of.

Example Sentences

"In the immediacy of the moment it would have been easy to make light of what was happening before the full picture was clear," it said in a message to fans on X.

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"It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man," he said in his opening monologue that night.

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He soon followed that by reiterating, while fighting back tears, that he never meant to “make light of the murder of a young man,” referring to Charlie Kirk, who was gunned down on Sept. 10.

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On Tuesday, Kimmel teared up when he spoke of Kirk’s death and said he never meant to make light of a young man’s killing.

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During Tuesday's show, a tearful Kimmel said it "was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man".

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Related Words

• curtail 
• decrease 
• diminish 
• downplay 
• lessen 
• play down 
• reduce 
• trivialize 
• underestimate