0 to make something seem less important or less bad than it really is: --
The government has been trying to downplay the crisis.
1 to make something seem less important or not as bad as it really is: --
Note that this response need not downplay the importance of fear, anxiety, and insecurity in people's lives.
Conversely, those downplaying the ongoing role of the party were not necessarily less radical or totalitarian.
It is not necessary to downplay one in order to make an argument for the other.
Similarly, he downplays the romantic aspect of the play.
The focus on synthesizing also downplays the depth of disagreements about the importance of ethnicity during and after the war.
These comments serve to generally downplay the importance of popular music in terms of identity.
This tends to downplay the impact of crops where a country has a comparative advantage in production.
While not denying that they had confined their wives, they downplayed its significance.
