Word.ws English Dictionary

play down

play down verb: to make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious.

Verb

play down (third-person singular simple present plays down, present participle playing down, simple past and past participle played down)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious.
    • The essay attempts to play down the role slavery had in the Civil War.
    • The senator played down the threat of a recession.

play down meaning in Kannada

play down in Kannada

ಅಲ್ಪವಾಗೆಣಿಸು, ಕಡೆಗಣಿಸು, ಅಪ್ರಧಾನವೆಂದು ಭಾವಿಸು

Synonyms of play down

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

1 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of play down

Forms of play down

third-person singular presentplays down
present participleplaying down
past participleplayed down
pastplayed down

Words formed from play down

Questions about play down

What does play down mean?
Play down means to make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious.
What is play down in Kannada?
Play down in Kannada is ಅಲ್ಪವಾಗೆಣಿಸು, ಕಡೆಗಣಿಸು, ಅಪ್ರಧಾನವೆಂದು ಭಾವಿಸು. See Play down meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is play down?
Play down is a verb.
What is the past tense of play down?
The past tense of play down is played down.

Words near play down in the dictionary

  1. play dead
  2. play dirty
  3. play doctor
  4. play doctors
  5. play doggo
  6. play down
  7. play dumb
  8. play equipment
  9. play fair
  10. play fast and loose
  11. play favorites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play down (page history and authors); play down (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-play down.ogg.

Cite this entry: “play down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.