play up

Từ điển Oxford Learners Wordfinder Dictionary

verb

1. move into the foreground to make more visible or prominent (Freq. 1)
- The introduction highlighted the speaker's distinguished career in linguistics
• Syn:
foreground, highlight, spotlight
• Ant:
play down, background (for: foreground)
• Derivationally related forms:
spotlight (for: spotlight), highlighter (for: highlight), highlight (for: highlight), highlighting (for: highlight), foreground (for: foreground)
• Hypernyms:
bring out, set off
• Verb Frames:
- Somebody ----s something
- Something ----s something
2. ingratiate oneself to;
often with insincere behavior
- She is playing up to the chairman
• Syn:
cozy up, cotton up, shine up, sidle up, suck up
• Hypernyms:
ingratiate
• Verb Frames:
- Somebody ----s PP