Word.ws English Dictionary

underplayed

underplayed is the simple past and past participle of underplay.

Meaning of underplay

Verb

underplay (third-person singular simple present underplays, present participle underplaying, simple past and past participle underplayed)

  1. (transitive) To play in a subordinate, or in an inferior manner; to underact a part.
  2. (transitive) To make something seem less important than it really is.
    • As a working-class person I want to tell Tucker and any other gay and lesbian activists who call themselves socialists and so should certainly know better, that when they underplay survival issues and don't acknowledge the faultline under their feet that is class in this society, it hurts me right...1985 August 17, Pam Mitchell, “Don't Say Class Until You Mean It”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 6, page 4
  3. (transitive) To play a low card when holding a high one, in the hope of a future advantage.

See all 4 meanings of underplay

Questions about underplayed

What is underplayed the simple past and past participle of?
Underplayed is the simple past and past participle of underplay.

Words near underplayed in the dictionary

  1. underplated
  2. underplates
  3. underplating
  4. underplatings
  5. underplay
  6. underplayed
  7. underplaying
  8. underplays
  9. underplot
  10. underplots
  11. underplotted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underplayed (page history and authors); underplay (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.

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