See play down in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays down",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing down",
"tags": [
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"present"
]
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{
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"pos": "verb",
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{
"word": "play up"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "big up"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
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"word": "cut it fat"
},
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"tags": [
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"word": "overcharge"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overdo"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overemphasize"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overstate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "play up"
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"tags": [
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"word": "stretch"
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"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "three-sheet"
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"categories": [
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"parents": [],
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{
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{
"word": "downplay"
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"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
22,
31
]
],
"text": "The essay attempts to play down the role slavery had in the Civil War.",
"type": "example"
},
{
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[
12,
23
]
],
"text": "The senator played down the threat of a recession.",
"type": "example"
},
{
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52,
63
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],
"text": "During the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, Miguel played down his immigrant status by removing Chicano patois from his speech and adopting the nickname \"Mike.\"",
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"ref": "2019 October, Dan Harvey, “HS2 costs rise as schedule slips”, in Modern Railways, page 8:",
"text": "Reports that the project is in trouble have been circulating for many months and have been played down by officials.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious."
],
"id": "en-play_down-en-verb-~EBZGCPs",
"links": [
[
"important",
"important"
],
[
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"likely"
],
[
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, transitive) To make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "de-emphasize"
},
{
"word": "downplay"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "bagatellize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "banalize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "belittle"
},
{
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"tags": [
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"word": "cut down"
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{
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"word": "de-emphasize"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "denigrate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "degrade"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "deprecate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "derogate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "disparage"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "dispraise"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "downplay"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "lilliputianize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "make little of"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
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{
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
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"word": "play down"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "set at nought"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "superficialize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "trivialize"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "underestimate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "underplay"
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{
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/En-au-play_down.ogg",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "play down"
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{
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"forms": [
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},
{
"form": "playing down",
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{
"form": "played down",
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
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{
"word": "play up"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"tags": [
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"word": "big up"
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{
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"word": "cut it fat"
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"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "exaggerate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"tags": [
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"tags": [
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"word": "overcharge"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overdo"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overemphasize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "overstate"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "play up"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"tags": [
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"word": "stretch"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:exaggerate",
"word": "three-sheet"
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],
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"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
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"English terms with quotations",
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"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
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],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
22,
31
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],
"text": "The essay attempts to play down the role slavery had in the Civil War.",
"type": "example"
},
{
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[
12,
23
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],
"text": "The senator played down the threat of a recession.",
"type": "example"
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{
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[
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63
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"type": "example"
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"ref": "2019 October, Dan Harvey, “HS2 costs rise as schedule slips”, in Modern Railways, page 8:",
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"type": "quotation"
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"To make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious."
],
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],
[
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],
[
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"(idiomatic, transitive) To make or attempt to make something seem less important, likely, or obvious."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "de-emphasize"
},
{
"word": "downplay"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "bagatellize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "banalize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "belittle"
},
{
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"tags": [
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"word": "cut down"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "de-emphasize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "denigrate"
},
{
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"word": "degrade"
},
{
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"word": "deprecate"
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{
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"word": "derogate"
},
{
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"word": "disparage"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "dispraise"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "downplay"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "lilliputianize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "make little of"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "make nothing of"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "minimize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "play down"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "set at nought"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "superficialize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "trivialize"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "underestimate"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "underplay"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"word": "understate"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:trivialize",
"tags": [
"dated",
"formal"
],
"word": "vilipend"
}
],
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"transitive"
]
}
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"sounds": [
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c0/En-au-play_down.ogg/En-au-play_down.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/En-au-play_down.ogg",
"tags": [
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}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "downplay"
}
],
"word": "play down"
}
Download raw JSONL data for play down meaning in English (4.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.