noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act by which something is downplayed, or made to seem less important.

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of downplay form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

minimizeplay downunderstateunderstateabateallay

Example

More examples

"Leaders are often faulted for downplaying crises, but Gerald Ford was accused by some of overreacting."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.