setdown
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: setdowns
form: set-down
Etymology: * Deverbal from set down.
* (buttocks): See set as US regional form of sit, and see sit down.
Senses: examples: text: setdown areas in a factory for materials unloaded from incoming vehicles
text: The [tour] bus brought them to the next setdown point, the gravesites of John and Robert Kennedy.
ref: 1980, Brian O’Connor, chapter 23, in The One-Shot War,, New York: Times Books, page 149:
text: 2003, Nancy Kerrigan and Mary Spencer, Artistry on Ice, Champaign IL: Human Kinetics, Chapter 18, p. 141,
[…] lifts are an equal relationship, with both [figure skating] partners starting the lift, maintaining its position in the air, and executing a smooth setdown.
glosses: The act of setting down something or someone.
examples: text: The platforms [at the rear of the spaceship] will also have legs for landing—designed to cushion the setdown and also to help level off the ship.
ref: 1957, Lester Del Rey, chapter 11, in Rockets through Space, Philadelphia: John C. Winston, page 62:
text: The medic would have to hold them on hover and watch the radar for a clear setdown.
ref: 1969, Andre Norton, chapter 13, in Postmarked the Stars, New York: Ballantine, published 1985, page 132:
text: You had almost no time, yet you autorotate at barely three hundred feet to make a perfect setdown on this flyspot. That was incredible flying.
ref: 1986, James Clavell, Whirlwind, New York: William Morrow, Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 5, p. 110:
synonyms: landing
touchdown
glosses: The act of descending onto a surface (of an aircraft or spacecraft).
examples: text: Diva fell quietly asleep, and presently there were indications that she would soon be noisily asleep. Miss Mapp hoped that she would begin to snore properly, for that would be a good set-down for Lucia […]
ref: 1931, E. F. Benson, chapter 6, in Mapp and Lucia, London: Hesperus, published 2014, page 143:
glosses: The humbling of a person by act or words.
examples: text: He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! […] I wish you had been there my dear, to have given him one of your set downs.
ref: 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 3, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 26:
text: To see a family taking deck passage on the boat […] is an interesting spot in the day’s experience, especially when some patronising passenger, accustomed to “natives” in other countries, gets one of the delightful set-downs the Maori can give so effectively.
ref: 1907, Beatrice Grimshaw, chapter 15, in In the Strange South Seas,, London: Hutchinson, page 314:
synonyms: put-down
glosses: A retort or a reproof that has a humbling effect.
examples: text: In Germany and England the tramps usually eat their set-downs in cheap restaurants or at lodging-houses.
ref: 1899, Josiah Flynt, Tramping with Tramps, New York: Century, published 1901, Part 1, Chapter 6, p. 146, footnote 1:
text: They had just finished eating, and I was taken right into the dining room—in itself a most unusual happening, for the tramp who is lucky enough to win a set-down usually receives it in the kitchen.
ref: 1907, Jack London, “Holding Her Down”, in The Road, New York: Macmillan, page 28:
glosses: A sit-down meal eaten by a tramp; a charitable meal provided to a tramp in the giver's home.
examples: text: “If we [boys] did get caught the watchman would take the wooden end of his hood, slap our setdowns, then give us a kick and say, ‘Get out!’ […]”
ref: 1915, Clifton Johnson, chapter 11, in Highways and Byways of New England, New York: Macmillan, page 218:
glosses: A person’s buttocks.