downtime

English

Etymology

From down (“out of order; out of service; inoperable”) +‎ time.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊntaɪm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌtaɪm/
• Hyphenation: down‧time

Noun

downtime (countable and uncountable, plural downtimes)

1. The amount of time lost due to forces beyond one's control, such as the breakdown of machinery or a computer crash.

   Antonym: uptime

   Coordinate term: idle time

   • 2017 March 1, Alex Hern, “How did an Amazon glitch leave people literally in the dark?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-30:

     A short internet outage might sound like a trifling matter – don’t we all need a little bit of time offline now and then? – but for many, the pervasiveness of the so-called “internet of things” meant downtime at Amazon affected their physical life as well as their digital one.

   • 2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney Offers Lessons from a Legendary Life”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 2022-11-07:

     As the world turns inward, trapped inside in various stages of pandemic quarantine, numerous songwriting luminaries (often blessed with their own in-home studios) have tried to use the downtime creatively—from Millennial stars like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande to longtime veterans like Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.

2. A period of time when work or other activity is less intense or stops.
3. (chiefly Canada, US) A period of time set aside for relaxation and rest; leisure time, free time.

   I’ve been working all weekend. I need some downtime.

   • 2010 August 24, Matt Richtel, “Digital devices deprive brain of needed downtime”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-29:

     But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

   • 2021 March 19, James Fallows, “Can humans be replaced by machines?”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-29:

     ‘We need to use the downtime, when things are calm, to prepare for when things get serious in the decades to come,’ he [Demis Hassabis] has said. ‘The time we have now is valuable, and we need to make use of it.’

Alternative forms

• down time, down-time

Translations

References

Further reading

• downtime on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “downtime, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.