From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishplay something ↔ down phrasal verbUNIMPORTANTto try to make something seem less important or less likely than it really is Management has been playing down the possibility of job losses.play down the importance/seriousness/significance of something The White House spokeswoman sought to play down the significance of the event. → play→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
play down• He's always playing himself down.• Miss Verjec blew her whistle and walked angrily towards those who had stopped playing and fallen down.• Odom, 26, did not play a down last season and retired last month.• Peter: Usually play football down the street, play footy.• The real surprise is that they played so badly down the stretch in both games and still managed to win.• I played well down the stretch.• The play settled down with its new cast.• Not the whiff of scandal; we played that down, wrongly, as it turned out.play down the importance/seriousness/significance of something• As a corollary, AI-workers have tended to play down the importance of neurophysiological knowledge about the brain.• At a New York conference this week Mr Murdoch tried to play down the significance of the deal.• Perhaps it was good that Hooper did not take Charles's kindness, but instead played down the significance of the incident.• The first reaction from the Tour organisers was to play down the significance of Voet's arrest. 