- downplay
- transitive verb Date: 1954 play down, de-emphasize
New Collegiate Dictionary. 2001.
downplay
Look at other dictionaries:
Downplay — Origin Athens, OH, USA Columbus, OH, USA Genres Alternative metal, alternative rock Years active 2005–Present Labels Epic Records … Wikipedia
downplay — “de emphasize,” 1968, from DOWN (Cf. down) (adv.) + PLAY (Cf. play) (v.). Related: Downplayed; downplaying … Etymology dictionary
downplay — [v] minimize attach little importance to, deemphasize, devalue, give little weight to, lessen, make light of, play down, soften, think nothing of, whitewash; concepts 54,240,247 … New thesaurus
downplay — ► VERB ▪ make (something) appear less important than it really is … English terms dictionary
downplay — [doun′plā΄] vt. to play down; minimize … English World dictionary
downplay — [[t]da͟ʊnple͟ɪ[/t]] downplays, downplaying, downplayed VERB If you downplay a fact or feature, you try to make people think that it is less important or serious than it really is. [V n] The government and the press are trying to downplay the… … English dictionary
downplay — UK [ˌdaʊnˈpleɪ] / US [ˈdaʊnˌpleɪ] verb [transitive] Word forms downplay : present tense I/you/we/they downplay he/she/it downplays present participle downplaying past tense downplayed past participle downplayed to deliberately make a situation… … English dictionary
downplay — verb To de emphasize; to present or portray as less important or consequential. He would sometimes downplay his Princeton education by saying simply that he went to school in New Jersey … Wiktionary
downplay — verb Downplay is used with these nouns as the object: ↑extent, ↑importance, ↑incident, ↑role, ↑seriousness, ↑significance … Collocations dictionary
downplay — down|play [ˌdaunˈpleı US ˈdaunpleı] v [T] to make something seem less important than it really is = ↑play down ▪ White House officials attempted to downplay the President s role in the affair … Dictionary of contemporary English
downplay — say it is not important, soft pedal They tried to downplay the fact that smoking caused the fire … English idioms
