Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word down. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word down, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say down in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word down you have here. The definition of the word down will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofdown, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
She was so mad she wouldn't speak to me for quite a spell, but at last I coaxed her into going up to Miss Emmeline's room and fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.
It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.
To the south (as south is at the bottom of typical maps).
But then my Servant who I had intended to take down with me , deceiv’d me;
At or towards any place that is visualised as 'down' by virtue of local features or local convention, or arbitrarily, irrespective of direction or elevation change.
To a subordinate or less prestigious position or rank.
Smith was sent down to the minors to work on his batting.
After the incident, Kelly went down to Second Lieutenant.
(sports) Towards the opponent's side (in ball-sports).
2015 May 25, “Frustrated Prince Harry howls as he misses open goal”, in Daily Telegraph:
The charity match, played Sunday afternoon at Cirencester Park Polo Club in Gloucestershire, reached a dramatic climax when Prince Harry tore down the pitch but failed to score what was described as an “open goal”.
2005 September, “LBW explained”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
By moving further down the pitch, the batsman lengthens the distance between the ball and the stumps.
So as to lessen quantity, level or intensity.
You need to tone down the rhetoric.
Please turn the music down!
So as to reduce size, weight or volume.
Trim the stick down to a length of about twelve inches.
Thanks to my strict diet, I've slimmed down to eleven stone.
Boil the mixture down to a syrupy consistency.
1788, Mary Cole (cook), The Lady's Complete Guide; or, Cookery in all its Branches, London: G. Kearsley, →OCLC, page 92:
ſtew it gently till quite tender, then take it up and boil down the gravy in the pan to a quart
1981 August 29, Nancy Wechsler, “Pornography and the Lawyers Guild”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 7, page 4:
At that point I perhaps should have gone back through the interview and changed what I said — slightly re-worded it to better reflect my feelings about the two resolutions. But I did not think to do that. I was caught up in the crunch of trying to get it all ready for publication, and edit it down, not add more explanations to it.
From less to greater detail.
This spreadsheet lets you drill down to daily or even hourly sales figures.
Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.
From a remoter or higher antiquity.
These traditions have been handed down over generations.
1825 June 17, Daniel Webster, An address delivered at the laying of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill monument, Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Co., →OCLC, page 12:
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation.
(crosswords, in relation to a numbered clued word) In a downwards direction; vertically.
I'm stuck on 11 down.
Used with verbs to indicate that the action of the verb was carried to some state of completion, permanence, or success rather than being of indefinite duration.
He closed operations. / He closed down operations.
Down, boy! (such as to direct a dog to stand on four legs from two, or to sit from standing on four legs.)
Usage notes
Down can be used with verbs in ways that change the meaning of the verb in ways not entirely predictable from the meanings of the down and the verb, though related to them. See Category:English phrasal verbs with particle (down).
Antonyms
(antonym(s) of “from a higher position to a lower one”):up
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.
Two down and one to go in the bottom of the ninth.
(colloquial, with "on") Negative about; hostile to.
1983 August 13, Dennis Stinson, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 5, page 22:
The prisoners here are down on gays (they bring the outside in here with them when they come in). I sometimes think they hate us because they fear to be us.
She's been down on clams since a bad case of food poisoning; she's lost her appetite for them.
He's chill enough; he'd probably be totally down with it.
Asker: Are you down to hang out at the mall? / Answerer: Yeah, as long as you're down with helping me pick a phone.
Asker: You down? Yes or no? / Answerer: You know I'm down for whatever.
2001, Omar Tyree, For the Love of Money, page 121:
Then again, with your name being Juanita Perez, I wasn't sure if you were more down with the Latinos or something.
2002, Count Basie, Albert Murray, Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography Of Count Basie, page 194:
He said Lunceford's band was smoother and had more musical variety and great show-band novelties, but that there was something about the way we did our things that made us sound more down with it.
2007, David W. Shave, Small Talk--big Cure!: Talking Your Way to a Better Life, page 58:
And we could then feel more "down" with more unconscious guilt.
2019 September 30, Jessica Hopper, Sasha Geffen, Jenn Pelly, “Building a Mystery: An Oral History of Lilith Fair”, in Vanity Fair:
I thought, Oh, Sarah must be one of these super gentle, herbal-tea-drinking, crystal-having kind of people. And she was just super down. She belched like a sailor.
I stay with Chloe the longest. When she's not hanging out at the beach parties, she lives in a Japanese garden complete with an arched bridge spanning a pond filled with koi of varying sizes and shapes. Reeds shoot out of the water, rustling when the fish swim through them, and river-washed stones are sprinkled in a bed of sand. Chloe has this whole new Japanese thing down.
1764, Jonathan Mayhew, A Defence of the Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, London: W. Nicoll, →OCLC, page 84:
This, he muſt give me leave to tell him, is an abſolute, right down—falſehood.
1897, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Report of the Commissioner ..., page 72:
Left again at 1.05 p.m., and for two miles it was over rolling county with easy grades, but a good deal of down timber.
1920, Boys and Girls Bookshelf: A Practical Plan of Character Building ..., page 309:
The mere fact that there are quantities of trees near by with "loads” of down wood, does not signify that it is desirable camp fuel.
1935 (printed in 2009), Powell, Shenandoah Letters, 54:
Will you please let me get two loads of down wood.
1981, Ecological Characteristics of Old-growth Douglas-fir Forests, page 31:
The average weight of down logs in seven old-growth stands, from 250 to over 900 years old, was 53 tons per acre (118 tonnes/ha); the range was 38 to 70 tons per acre (85 to 156 tonnes/ha). The largest accumulation of down wood recorded for a stand thus far is in the Carbon River Valley […]
(rail transport, of a train) Travelling in the direction leading away from the principal terminus, away from milepost zero.
In many senses, using this adjective in an attributive position (before the noun) is avoided in everyday Standard English:
The system is down. / (nonstandard) They were fixing the down system.
Compare a synonym, faulty, which can be used either predicatively or attributively:
The system is faulty. / They were fixing the faulty system.
(both acceptable)
In certain specialised uses (such as the veterinary medicine, timber and rail transport senses), there is no avoidance of the attributive placement, which is used freely.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
‘I remember how you downed Beauclerk and Hamilton, the Wits, once at our House, – when they talked of Ghosts.’
1986 April 12, anonymous author, “One Day I'll Write a Book on This”, in Gay Community News, page 3:
Now you have a social worker who downs women who are gay! […] I have met a woman and fell in love with her and I still get humiliated and discriminated against because he (social worker) is against homosexuality and is causing a lot of confusion here.
1984 December 29, Gena Spero, “Innocent Lesbian In Prison”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 4:
I am on drugs that I don't need to be on. They feel if I'm on a lot of downs, then I won't complain about my prison life
An act of swallowing an entire drink at once.
(American football) A single play, from the time the ball is snapped (the start) to the time the whistle is blown (the end) when the ball is down, or is downed.
I bet after the third down, the kicker will replace the quarterback on the field.
(crosswords) A clue whose solution runs vertically in the grid.
I haven't solved 12 or 13 across, but I've got most of the downs.
Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans, "Spatial particles of orientation", in The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 0-521-81430 8
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down
1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, London: Pr. for S. Smith, →OCLC:
...as they muſt needs acknowledge who have been on the Downs of Suſſex, and enjoyed that ravishing Proſpect of the Sea on one Hand, and the Country far and wide on the other.
1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Lady Clare”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, →OCLC, page 198:
She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair.
The amateur nature-lover proceeds over the down, appreciating all this as hard as he can appreciate, and anon gazing up at the grey and white cloud shapes melting slowly from this form to that, and showing lakes, and wide expanses, and serene distances of blue between their gaps.
(usually in the plural) A field, especially one used for horse racing.
(UK, chiefly in the plural) A tract of poor, sandy, undulating or hilly land near the sea, covered with fine turf which serves chiefly for the grazing of sheep.
1636, George Sandys, “A Paraphrase Vpon Iob”, in Early English Books:
Seven thousand broad-taild Sheepe gras'd on his Downes;
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
1718, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged, London: W. Churchill, →OCLC, page 120:
Down or Cotton-Thiſtle. This hath many large Leaves lying on the Ground, ſomewhat cut in, and as it were crumpled on the Edges, of a green Colour on the upper ſide, but covered with long hairy Wool or Cottony Down, ſet with moſt ſharp and cruel pricks
1998, Valerie Worth, The Crone's Book of Charms and Spells, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, →ISBN, page 152:
No candle should light it, neither should any flower adorn it, save for several dried stalks of old and withered thistles, their heads pale with silken down, held in a common glass jar.
The soft hair of the face when beginning to appear.
1717, John Dryden, The Dramatick Works of John Dryden, Esq., volume the fourth, London: Jacob Tonson, →OCLC, page 136:
But love him as he was, when youthful Grace, And the firſt Down began to ſhade his face
Thou boſom Softneſs! Down of all my Cares! I cou'd recline my thoughts upon this Breaſt To a forgetfulneſs of all my Griefs, And yet be happy: but it wonnot be.
(informal,neurology)Down syndrome(genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21 (a chromosomal excess), whereby the patients typically have a delay in cognitive ability and physical growth, as well as a small head and tilted eyelids)