talk down

Charity immediately perceived that something bitter had happened to him, and that he was trying to talk down the recollection.

You can never talk down or sing down or pray down an institution which is voted into existence.

You never can talk down or sing down or pray down an institution which is voted into existence.

"Yours isn't the voice to talk down a trumpet," said Leo Ulford, with a sudden air of surliness.

He has his hero, his great man, a professor at the College de France, paid to talk down to the level of his audience.