PLAY DOWN

Pronunciation (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does play down mean? 

• PLAY DOWN (verb)
  The verb PLAY DOWN has 1 sense:

1. understate the importance or quality of

  Familiarity information: PLAY DOWN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLAY DOWN (verb)

Meaning:

Understate the importance or quality of

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

background; play down; downplay

Context example:

he played down his royal ancestry

Hypernyms (to "play down" is one way to...):

accent; accentuate; emphasise; emphasize; punctuate; stress (to stress, single out as important)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "play down"):

wave off (dismiss as insignificant)

soft-pedal (play down or obscure)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Antonym:

play up (move into the foreground to make more visible or prominent)