From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdownplaydown‧play /ˌdaʊnˈpleɪ $ ˈdaʊnpleɪ/ verb [transitive] UNIMPORTANTto make something seem less important than it really is SYN play down White House officials attempted to downplay the president’s role in the affair.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
downplay• On the other hand, by downplaying her own commitment to gay rights, she seemed to be validating the political closet.• Also, in focusing on two-year institutions, I do not mean to downplay the role of four-year colleges and universities.• Grandma downplays the seriousness of her health problems.• Such stereotypic thinking forces even black stations to downplay their blackness in order to compete for the advertising dollars. 