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 fetchingdown a tintype of the missing Deacon man.
It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walkingdown 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 thesouth (as south is at the bottom of typical maps).
But then my Servant who I had intended to takedown with me [i.e. from London toBedfordshire], 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 sentdown to the minors to work on his batting.
After the incident, Kelly wentdown to Second Lieutenant.
(sports) Towards the opponent's side (in ball-sports).
2015 May 25, “Frustrated Prince Harry howls as he misses open goal”, inDaily Telegraph[2]:
The charity match, played Sunday afternoon at Cirencester Park Polo Club in Gloucestershire, reached a dramatic climax when Prince Harry toredown 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)[3]:
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 tonedown the rhetoric.
Please turn the musicdown!
So as to reduce size, weight or volume.
Trim the stickdown to a length of about twelve inches.
Thanks to my strict diet, I've slimmeddown to eleven stone.
Boil the mixturedown to a syrupy consistency.
1788, Mary Cole (cook),The Lady's Complete Guide; or, Cookery in all its Branches, London: G. Kearsley,→OCLC, page92:
ſtew it gently till quite tender, then take it up and boildown the gravy in the pan to a quart
1981 August 29, Nancy Wechsler, “Pornography and the Lawyers Guild”, inGay 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 itdown, not add more explanations to it.
From less to greater detail.
This spreadsheet lets you drilldown 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 scrutiniseddown to tenths of a percentage point every month.
From a remoter or higher antiquity.
These traditions have been handeddown 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, page12:
Venerable men! you have comedown to us from a former generation.
(crosswords, in relation to a numbered clued word) In a downwards direction; vertically.
I'm stuck on 11down.
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.
Down can be used with verbs in ways that change the meaning of the verb in ways not entirely predictable from the meanings of thedown and the verb, though related to them. SeeCategory:English phrasal verbs formed with "down".
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidlydown the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.
(colloquial, with "on") Negative about; hostile to.
1983 August 13, Dennis Stinson, “Personal advertisement”, inGay Community News, volume11, number 5, page22:
The prisoners here aredown 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 beendown on clams since a bad case of food poisoning; she's lost her appetite for them.
He's chill enough; he'd probably be totallydown with it.
Asker: Are youdown to hang out at the mall? /Answerer: Yeah, as long as you'redown with helping me pick a phone.
Asker: Youdown? Yes or no? /Answerer: You know I'mdown for whatever.
2001, Omar Tyree,For the Love of Money, page121:
Then again, with your name being Juanita Perez, I wasn't sure if you were moredown with the Latinos or something.
2002, Count Basie, Albert Murray,Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography Of Count Basie, page194:
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 moredown with it.
2007, David W. Shave,Small Talk--big Cure!: Talking Your Way to a Better Life, page58:
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”, inVanity Fair[6]:
I thought, Oh, Sarah must be one of these super gentle, herbal-tea-drinking, crystal-having kind of people. And she was just superdown. 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 thingdown.
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, page84:
This, he muſt give me leave to tell him, is an abſolute, rightdown—falſehood.
1981,Ecological Characteristics of Old-growth Douglas-fir Forests, page31:
The average weight ofdown 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 ofdown 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 principalterminus, away frommilepost zero.
In many senses, using this adjective in an attributive position (before the noun) is avoided in everyday Standard English:
The system isdown. /(nonstandard) They were fixing thedown system.
Compare a synonym,faulty, which can be used either predicatively or attributively:
The system isfaulty. / They were fixing thefaulty 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 atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
‘I remember how youdowned Beauclerk and Hamilton,the Wits, once at our House, – when they talked ofGhosts.’
1986 April 12, anonymous author, “One Day I'll Write a Book on This”, inGay Community News, page 3:
Now you have a social worker whodowns 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”, inGay Community News, volume12, number25, page 4:
I am on drugs that I don't need to be on. They feel if I'm on a lot ofdowns, 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 ballis down, oris downed.
I bet after the thirddown, the kicker will replace the quarterback on the field.
Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans, "Spatial particles of orientation", inThe 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 bowdost crown Mybosky acres and my unshrubb'ddown
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 theDowns 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”, inPoems, London: Edward Moxon,→OCLC, page198:
She went by dale, and she went bydown, With a single rose in her hair.
The amateur nature-lover proceeds over thedown, 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 theplural) A field, especially one used for horse racing.
(UK, chiefly in theplural) 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”, inEarly English Books[8]:
Seven thousand broad-taild Sheepe gras'd on hisDownes;
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
1718, Nicholas Culpeper,The English Physician Enlarged, London: W. Churchill,→OCLC, page120:
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 CottonyDown, ſet with moſt ſharp and cruel pricks
1998, Valerie Worth,The Crone's Book of Charms and Spells, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications,→ISBN, page152:
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 silkendown, 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, page136:
But love him as he was, when youthful Grace, And the firſtDown 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)
