strike down

• Audio (US):

  (file)

strike down (third-person singular simple present strikes down, present participle striking down, simple past struck down, past participle struck down or stricken down)

1. To kill (someone or something); to cause to die suddenly.

   God will strike you down!

   May the Lord strike down those sinners!

   • 1977, George Lucas, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope:

     Darth Vader: Your powers are weak old man.
     Obi-Wan Kenobi: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

   • 1994, Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction:

     And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

2. To knock down.
   • 1962 March, “The New Year Freeze-up on British Railways”, in Modern Railways, page 158:

     Throughout the country there were: rupture of telecommunications, resulting amongst other things from telegraph wires and posts overweighted by snow or struck down by gales; [...].

   • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Reading (1840)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 56:

     He was perched up top attending to the roof lantern when he was stuck down (literally) by a storm of "preposterous fury" (Bizarre Berkshire, D. Mackay 2011).

3. To prostrate by illness.
4. (law) To invalidate (a law, statute etc.)

   Antonym: uphold

   • 2004 October 29, Peter Wong, “Interracial-marriage ban used in Measure 36 comparisons”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A:

     Later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriages remaining in 16 states, all in the old Confederacy and border states.

• downstrike