write down

write down (third-person singular simple present writes down, present participle writing down, simple past wrote down, past participle written down)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see write,‎ down.

   I can't write down in the basement; it's cold there and my fingers cramp and get stiff.

2. (transitive) To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.

   Synonyms: write up, record, transcribe, document, log, inscripturate

3. (transitive, intransitive) To write (something) in a simple or condescending style.

   Coordinate terms: dumb down, talk down, talk down to

   • 2011, Ada Leverson, Love's Shadow: The Bloomsbury Group‎:

     Good heavens, I can't write down to the level of the vulgar public!

4. (transitive, accounting) To make a downward adjustment in the value of an asset.

   Synonym: devalue

   Antonym: write up

5. (transitive) To condemn in writing; to document the faults, offenses, or wrongdoing of.
   • 1951 December, Michael Robbins, “John Francis's "History of the English Railway"”, in Railway Magazine, page 800:

     By 1859, D. Morier Evans was exhibiting Hudson as the principal character in his rogues' gallery entitled "Facts, Failures and Frauds"; and at the hands of modern economic historians he has been written down as a common swindler.

   Synonym: write up

   See also: cite

• As with many pairs of phrasal verbs that contain antonymic particles (such as up and down), write down and write up can nonetheless function as synonyms for some senses.

• Winterowd