Definition of "underplay" []

• To act (a role) subtly or with restraint. (verb-transitive)
• To present or deal with subtly or with restraint; play down. (verb-transitive)
• To act a role subtly or with restraint. (verb-intransitive)
• Games To play a low card while holding a higher card in the same suit. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Hunt helps us to recognize a paradox that recent historians of book-collecting underplay, which is that the book-collectors 'obsessive acquisitiveness not only vexed their contemporaries but also beguiled them, as the undertone of affection in period commentaries hints."
• "And Dana Andrews, an underestimated actor who wasn’t fully appreciated because his style was to underplay, which is so difficult."
• "There is also something antithetical to making Crispin Glover "underplay" his role."