downcast

The adjective is derived from Middle English doun-casten, *adoun-casten (“(adjective) cast down, dejected; (verb) to break down (something); to overcome (someone); to overturn (something)”), from down (“in a downward direction; (figurative) to destruction”), adoun (“downward”) + casten (“to throw (something), fling, hurl; to overcome (someone), defeat, overpower; ”) (from Old Norse kasta (“to cast, throw”), from Proto-Germanic *kastōną (“to throw”), from *kas- (“to throw, toss; to bring up”); further etymology uncertain), modelled similarly to other constructions in Middle English such as adoun-throwen (“to throw down”) and adoun-werpen (“to throw down”)). The English word is analysable as down- (prefix meaning ‘lower direction or position’) +‎ cast (“that has been thrown”, adjective).

The noun is derived from the adjective.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnkɑːst/, /-kæst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌkæst/
• Hyphenation: down‧cast

downcast (comparative more downcast, superlative most downcast)

2. Of the eyes, a facial expression, etc.: looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty.
   • 1582, Virgil, “The Third Booke of Virgil His Aeneis”, in Richard Stanyhurst, transl., The First Foure Bookes of Virgils Æneis, , London: Henrie Bynneman , published 1583, →OCLC; republished as The First Four Books of the Æneid of Virgil, , Edinburgh: , 1836, →OCLC, page 80:

     Briefly then heere Dido, with downe caſt phiſnomie, parled.

   • , George Herbert, “The Church Militant”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, , →OCLC, page 186:

     [A]s before Empire and Arts made vvay, / (For no leſſe Harbingers vvould ſerve then they) / So they might ſtill, and point us out the place / VVhere firſt the Church ſhould raiſe her dovvn-caſt face.

   • 1681, John Dryden, “Canace to Macareus”, in Ovid, Ovid’s Epistles, , 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson , →OCLC, page 10:

     'Tis Love, ſaid ſhe; and then my dovvn-caſt eyes, / And guilty dumbneſs, vvitneſs'd my ſurprize.

   • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson , and John Barber , →OCLC, page 502:

     VVhile Thy abandon'd Tribes ſhall only knovv / A diff'rent Maſter, and a Change of VVoe: / VVith dovvn-caſt Eye-lids, and vvith Looks a-ghaſt, / Shall dread the Future, or bevvail the Paſt.

   • a. 1722, Matthew Prior, “A Pastoral. To Dr. [Francis] Turner, Bishop of Ely, on His Departure from Cambridge.”, in The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior , volume II, London: W Strahan, , published 1779, →OCLC, page 107:

     Suppreſs your ſigh, your dovvn-caſt eyelids raiſe, / VVhom preſent you revere, him abſent praiſe.

   • 1743, Henry Fielding, “The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. Chapter VIII. In which Our Hero Carries Greatness to an Immoderate Height.”, in Miscellanies, , volume III, London: A Millar, , →OCLC, book II, page 151:

     [T]hat dovvn-caſt Countenance vvhich betrays the Man, vvho, after a ſtrong Conflict betvveen Virtue and Vice, hath ſurrendered his Mind to the latter, and is diſcovered in his firſt Treachery; […]

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Two. The First of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, , →OCLC, page 69:

     And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; […]

   • 1887, John Ruskin, “The Simplon”, in Præterita. Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts Perhaps Worthy of Memory in My Past Life, volume II, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, →OCLC, page 174:

     But Gordon's downcast mien did not change; and I had to admit myself, when supper-time came, that one might almost as hopelessly have sopped the Matterhorn as the loaf.

3. Of a person or thing: cast or thrown to the ground.
   • 1600 or 1601 (date written), I. M. [i.e., John Marston], Antonios Reuenge. The Second Part. , London: for Thomas Fisher, and are to be soulde  , published 1602, →OCLC, Act V, scene vi, signature K4, recto:

     VVhere liues all vvoe? conduct him to vs three, / The dovvne-caſt ruines of calamitie.

   • 1691, N[ahum] Tate, A Poem, Occasioned by His Majesty’s Voyage to Holland, the Congress at the Hague, and Present Siege of Mons, London: Richard Baldwin, , →OCLC, page 9:

     […] Dovvncaſt Lucifer revolves his State, / VVith his fall'n Angels ſits in Dark Debate, / And from This Conſtellation bodes his Fate.

4. Of a thing: directed downwards.
5. (figurative)
   1. Of a person: feeling despondent or discouraged.
      • 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter VII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. , volume III, London: for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC, page 155:

        His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow and quenched in infinite wretchedness.

   2. Of a person or thing: defeated, overthrown; also, destroyed, ruined.

• downcastly
• downcastness

downcast (plural downcasts)

1. (geology, obsolete) Synonym of downthrow (“a depression of the strata on one side of a fault; also, the degree of downward displacement in such a fault”)

   Antonyms: upcast, upthrow

   a downcast dyke

From Middle English downcast (“misfortune”), adoun-cast (“destruction, overthrow”), from adoun (“downward”) + cast (“a throw, a cast”) (from Old Norse kast (“a throw”), from kasten (“to cast, throw”)), from Middle English casten adoun: see etymology 1. The English word is analysable as down- (prefix meaning ‘lower direction or position’) +‎ cast (“act of throwing”, noun).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnkɑːst/, /-kæst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌkæst/
• Hyphenation: down‧cast

downcast (countable and uncountable, plural downcasts)

1. (countable) An act of looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty; hence (uncountable, archaic), dejection, melancholy.
   • c. 1608–1611 (date written), [Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher], The Maides Tragedy. , London: [Nicholas Okes] for Francis Constable , published 1619, →OCLC, Act II, signature E, recto:

     [C]ome lets be ſad my girles, / That dovvne caſt of thine eye Olimpias, / Shovves a faind ſorrovv; […]

   • 1722, Richard Steele, The Conscious Lovers. A Comedy. , London: J Tonson , published 1723, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 37:

     I ſavv the reſpectful Dovvncaſt of his Eye, vvhen you catcht him gazing at you during the Muſick: He, I vvarrant, vvas ſurpriz'd, as if he had been taken ſtealing your VVatch. O! the undiſſembled Guilty Look!

   • 1884, [Richard Doddridge Blackmore], “On the Rocks”, in The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, , volume II, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, , →OCLC, page 66:

     And at every such aid, there was a smile to pay; not to mention the downcast of eyes sometimes, and sometimes their uplifting with a soft, sweet light, and the fluttering of lashes in the fresh wind from the sea, and the murmuring of lips, more pink and melodious than any clear Pacific shell.

2. (countable, archaic)
   1. An act, or the situation, of being cast or thrown to the ground.
   2. (figurative) A defeat, an overthrow; also, an act of destruction or ruin.
3. (countable, computing) A cast (“change of expression of a data type”) from supertype to subtype.

   Antonym: upcast

4. (countable, mining, chiefly attributive) A ventilating shaft down which air passes in circulating through a mine.

From Middle English doun-casten, *adoun-casten (“to cast or throw (something) downwards; to break down (something); to overcome (someone); to overturn (something)”), from down (“in a downward direction; (figurative) to destruction”), adoun (“downward”) + casten (“to throw (something), fling, hurl; to overcome (someone), defeat, overpower; ”): see etymology 1. The English word is analysable as down- (prefix meaning ‘lower direction or position’) +‎ cast (“to throw”, verb).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnkɑːst/, /-kæst/, /daʊnˈkɑːst/, /-ˈkæst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

  Audio:

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌkæst/, /ˌdaʊnˈkæst/
• Rhymes: -ɑːst, -æst
• Hyphenation: down‧cast

downcast (third-person singular simple present downcasts, present participle downcasting, simple past and past participle downcast or downcasted) (transitive)

1. To turn (the eyes) downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty.
2. To cast or throw (something) downwards; also, to drop or lower (something).
   • 1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, published 1839, →OCLC, stanza 12, page 30:

     For there shall come a mightier blast, / There shall be a darker day; / And the stars, from heaven down-cast, / Like red leaves be swept away!

3. To demolish or tear down (a building, etc.).
4. (figurative) To make (someone) feel despondent or discouraged; to discourage, to sadden.

   Synonym: cast down

5. (computing) To cast (“change the expression of”) (a data type) from supertype to subtype.

   Antonym: upcast

6. (Scotland) To reproach or upbraid (someone); also, to taunt (someone).
7. (obsolete) To depose or overthrow (a leader, an institution, etc.); also (sometimes reflexive), to bring down (oneself or someone) from an exalted position; to humble.

   Synonym: cast down

• downcasting (noun)

• cast down

• cast down