down
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /daʊn/
ipa: /dʌʊn/
ipa: [dəu̯n]
ipa: /duːn/
rhymes: -aʊn
Forms: form: further down
form: farther down
form: furthest down
form: farthest down
form: doon
Etymology: From Middle English doun, doune, from Old English dūne (“down”), aphetic form of adūne (“down, downward”), from earlier ofdūne (“down”, literally “off the hill”), from of (“of, off of”) + dūn (“hill, mount, dune, down”). More at Etymology 2 below. For the development from directional phrases to prepositions, compare Middle Low German dāle (“down, downwards”, literally “(in/to the) dale/valley”), whence German Low German dal (“down”). Compare also Saterland Frisian deel (“down”, literally “to/into the dale”).
Senses: examples: text: The cat jumped down from the table.
text: 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 fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: To her humiliation Jessamy found there were tears trickling down her cheeks.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, year_published edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 48:
text: Through the open front door ran Jessamy, down the steps to where Kitto was sitting at the bottom with the pram beside him.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 122:
glosses: From a higher position to a lower one; downwards.
examples: text: Go down to the bottom of the page.
text: As I lay on my back, a pain shot down from my neck to my waist.
glosses: To or towards what is considered the bottom of something, irrespective of whether this is presently physically lower.
examples: text: His place is farther down the road.
text: The company was well down the path to bankruptcy.
text: It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down 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.
ref: 1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01:
glosses: At a lower or further place or position along a set path.
examples: text: I went down to Miami for a conference.
glosses: To the south (as south is at the bottom of typical maps).
examples: text: He went down to Cavan.
text: down on the farm
text: down to the country
text: 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., p. 12,
But then my Servant who I had intended to take down with me [i.e. from London to Bedfordshire], deceiv’d me;
glosses: Away from the city (regardless of direction).
examples: text: She lives down by the park.
coordinate_terms: over
glosses: 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.
examples: text: At the first intersection turn left and walk down, then turn right.
glosses: Forward, straight ahead.
topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
glosses: In the direction leading away from the principal terminus, away from milepost zero.
examples: text: He's gone back down to Newcastle for Christmas.
topics: academia
scholarly
sciences
glosses: Away from Oxford or Cambridge.
examples: text: Smith was sent down to the minors to work on his batting.
text: After the incident, Kelly went down to Second Lieutenant.
glosses: To a subordinate or less prestigious position or rank.
examples: text: The charity match, played Sunday afternoon at Cirencester Park Polo Club in Gloucestershire, reached a dramatic climax when Prince Harry tore down the pitch but failed to score what was described as an “open goal”.
ref: 2015 May 25, “Frustrated Prince Harry howls as he misses open goal”, in Daily Telegraph:
text: By moving further down the pitch, the batsman lengthens the distance between the ball and the stumps.
ref: 2005 September 23, “LBW explained”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Towards the opponent's side (in ball-sports).
examples: text: You need to tone down the rhetoric.
text: Please turn the music down!
glosses: So as to lessen quantity, level or intensity.
examples: text: Trim the stick down to a length of about twelve inches.
text: Thanks to my strict diet, I've slimmed down to eleven stone.
text: Boil the mixture down to a syrupy consistency.
text: ſtew it gently till quite tender, then take it up and boil down the gravy in the pan to a quart
ref: 1788, Mary Cole (cook), The Lady's Complete Guide; or, Cookery in all its Branches, London: G. Kearsley, →OCLC, page 92:
text: 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 it down, not add more explanations to it.
ref: 1981 August 29, Nancy Wechsler, “Pornography and the Lawyers Guild”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 7, page 4:
glosses: So as to reduce size, weight or volume.
examples: text: This spreadsheet lets you drill down to daily or even hourly sales figures.
text: 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 scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.
ref: 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
glosses: From less to greater detail.
examples: text: These traditions have been handed down over generations.
text: Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation.
ref: 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, page 12:
glosses: From a remoter or higher antiquity.
examples: text: The computer has been shut down.
text: They closed the shop down.
glosses: Into a state of non-operation.
examples: text: We need to nail down this carpet so people don't keep tripping over it.
glosses: So as to secure or compress something to the floor, ground, or other (usually horizontal) surface.
examples: text: You need to write down what happened while it's still fresh in your mind.
glosses: On paper (or in a durable record).
examples: text: The speaker was heckled and shouted down.
text: The comedy club's audience was known for hooting down timid performers.
glosses: So as to be cowed into silence.
examples: text: We put £100 down on a new sofa.
text: You can have it, no money down.
glosses: As a down payment.
examples: text: I'm stuck on 11 down.
qualifier: crosswords
glosses: In a downwards direction; vertically.
raw_tags: in relation to a numbered clued word
examples: text: He closed operations. / He closed down operations.
text: He chased answers. / He chased down answers.
glosses: 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.
examples: raw_tags: such as to direct a dog to stand on four legs from two, or to sit from standing on four legs.
text: Down, boy! (such as to direct a dog to stand on four legs from two, or to sit from standing on four legs.)
qualifier: sentence substitute
glosses: Get down.