minimizar

to minimise

verb mee-nee-mee-SAHR Rare

Also means

to downplay

Usage Note

Minimizar covers both the concrete sense of making something smaller (minimising a window on screen) and the rhetorical act of downplaying significance — minimizar el problema is to brush a problem aside. The verb follows regular -ar conjugation with no stem change. It is a close cognate of English 'minimise' and rarely trips up learners.

Examples

"No intentes minimizar lo que pasó."

Natural Translation

Don't try to downplay what happened.

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