play down

British  

verb

1. (tr, adverb) to make little or light of; minimize the importance of

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play down Idioms  

1. Make little of, minimize the importance of, as in A skillful salesman plays down the drawbacks of the product and emphasizes its good features . [First half of 1900s]

2. play down to . Lower one's standards to meet the demands of someone, as in Some stand-up comics deliberately play down to the vulgar taste of their audiences . [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

Last summer, David Sacks, the White House AI czar, played down the possibility of chips being diverted to China, saying it was “very easy to basically verify” their location.

From The Wall Street Journal

Rapino played down the comment, testifying that he meant Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, successfully took a fragmented industry and “put the pieces together to make it a global, attractive business for artists.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Third is the post-meeting press conference, where Fed Chair Jerome Powell can amplify or play down whatever signals emerge from the other two.

From The Wall Street Journal

Despite the worries about a surge in global costs similar to that seen in 2022, when inflation topped 10 percent in the eurozone and nine percent in the US, some analysts played down the dangers.

From Barron's

Executives at the biggest private-credit lenders have sought to play down an exodus of investor money from their funds, making carefully worded television appearances to calm jitters about the sector.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• belittle
• gloss over
• minimize
• mute
• soft pedal
• soften
• underplay