MEANING
To give something less attention, prominence, or relative importance.
Use it for
reducing the weight assigned to one explanatory factor; shifting an argument’s focus without denying a factor; making a claim less prominent in a revised accountDescribes reducing assigned attention or weight, not necessarily denying a factor’s existence. Academic functions: Argumentation.
Words that belong together
- de-emphasize a factor
- de-emphasize the role of
- de-emphasize individual responsibility
On the page
The revised account de-emphasizes individual motives and examines institutional incentives.
De-emphasizing a finding does not remove the need to report it accurately.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- de-emphasize
- Past tense
- de-emphasized
- Past participle
- de-emphasized
- Present participle
- de-emphasizing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- de-emphasize
- Present continuous
- am/is/are de-emphasizing
- Present perfect
- have/has de-emphasized
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been de-emphasizing
- Past
- de-emphasized
- Past continuous
- was/were de-emphasizing
- Past perfect
- had de-emphasized
- Past perfect continuous
- had been de-emphasizing
- Future
- will de-emphasize
- Future continuous
- will be de-emphasizing
- Future perfect
- will have de-emphasized
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been de-emphasizing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Transitive. Third-person de-emphasizes; past and past participle de-emphasized; present participle de-emphasizing. Deemphasize and British -ise forms are variants. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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