minimize

CEFRC1

/ˈmɪn.ɪ.maɪz/

verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
verb
To make something seem smaller or less important than it is.
02
verb
Extra detail
To relegate or assign (something) to a less insignificant status; diminish.

Examples

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Also pronounced

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

To remove (a window) from the main display area, collapsing it to an icon or caption.
To make (something) smaller or as small as possible; shrink; reduce.
To treat (someone) in a slighting manner.

In context

I want to minimize the chances of another accident.
The insurance adjuster tried to minimize the extent of the damage to lessen the company's exposure to liability.
Try to minimize your biases.

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

For accurate stopping, the drive must incorporate means for minimizing inertia overdrift.
1954, Instruments and Control Systems - Volume 27, page 1466
Terry, author of the indispensable Terry's Guide to Mexico, has a name for it – atrabiliousness. "The defect of many of the murals," he says, speaking of those in the orphan asylum, "is the facial atrabiliousness of some of the subjects. To the observer it minimizes the grandeur of the conception […]"
1948, Willard Price, Roving South, Rio Grande to Patagonia, New York, N.Y.: J. Day Co., →OCLC, page 13
One way to minimize or mitigate the copycat effect is to deemphasize the perpetrator and deglorify the violence in real and fictional stories.
2023, Jacqueline B. Helfgott, Copycat Crime
[…] father who had never openly minimized him or anything he did […]
1993, Jan McDaniel, One Golden Summer, page 95

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

From Latin minimus + -ize.