bagatellize means to regard as a bagatelle; to play down, trivialize or belittle. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
bagatellize is pronounced /ˈbæɡətɛlˌaɪz/.
Why “bagatellize” is a great word
BAGATELLIZE — [Verb] To treat or regard something as a trifle or insignificant matter; to trivialize or belittle. From French bagatelle ("trifle, insubstantial thing") + the English verbal suffix -ize. Unlike "minimize," which seeks to reduce importance, or "dismiss," which rejects consideration outright, to bagatellize frames a subject as inherently frivolous, a thing of no weight. It is the weary wave of a hand that turns a confession into chatter, the flippant joke made over a grievance, or the arch tone that shrinks another's fervent passion to the scale of a child's hobby—the quiet violence of making substance into air.
verb
- To regard as a bagatelle; to play down, trivialize or belittle.“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”