bagatellize

• bagatellise

From bagatelle (“trifle; insubstantial thing”) +‎ -ize. Compare German bagatellisieren.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbæɡətɛlˌaɪz/

bagatellize (third-person singular simple present bagatellizes, present participle bagatellizing, simple past and past participle bagatellized)

1. (transitive, rare) To regard as a bagatelle; to play down, trivialize or belittle.
   • 2017, Martti Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 263:

     Both at Mari and in Assyria, the prophetic demands for cultic perfection and social justice were theologically based on the divinely sanctioned position of the king between the gods and his people. Therefore, the criticism of the prophets should not be bagatellized, even though it may appear to us as pedantic or indifferent from the ethical point of view.²⁶