Definition of "down"

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.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 6, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

To her humiliation Jessamy found there were tears trickling down her cheeks.

1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, year_published edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, page 48

Through the open front door ran Jessamy, down the steps to where Kitto was sitting at the bottom with the pram beside him.

1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, page 122

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.

1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., page 01

But then my Servant who I had intended to take down with me [i.e. from London to Bedfordshire], deceiv’d me;

1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., p. 12

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”.

2015 May 25, “Frustrated Prince Harry howls as he misses open goal”, in Daily Telegraph‎

By moving further down the pitch, the batsman lengthens the distance between the ball and the stumps.

2005 September, “LBW explained”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎

Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation.

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., page 12

ſtew it gently till quite tender, then take it up and boil down the gravy in the pan to a quart

1788, Mary Cole (cook), The Lady's Complete Guide; or, Cookery in all its Branches, London: G. Kearsley, page 92

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.

2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

You win a dollar if the down side of the card is different than the up side; otherwise, you lose a dollar.

1993, Finite Mathematics: Overrun Edition, Calvert, page 251

Define the event F as the event that the down face of the die is 1 or 4.

2004, Robert M. Gray, Lee D. Davisson, An Introduction to Statistical Signal Processing, page 170

Each time the 10 cards are reshuffled, your task is to predict the letter on the down side of the top card.

2016, Keith E. Stanovich, Richard F. West, Maggie E. Toplak, The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking, page 332

We get down, down, down / We feel sorry for ourselves / We get down, down, down / We all need somebody's help

2011, Rachel Platten (lyrics and music), “Overwhelmed”, in Be Here‎

You say you opened up a bicycle wash and the first six customers drowned [...] Is that what’s got you down, pussy cat?

2014 March 30, William Yardley, quoting Eddie Lawrence, “Eddie Lawrence Dies at 95; Comedy's ‘Old Philosopher’”, in New York Times‎, Arts

Then again, with your name being Juanita Perez, I wasn't sure if you were more down with the Latinos or something.

2001, Omar Tyree, For the Love of Money, page 121

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 more down with it.

2002, Count Basie, Albert Murray, Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography Of Count Basie, page 194

And we could then feel more "down" with more unconscious guilt.

2007, David W. Shave, Small Talk--big Cure!: Talking Your Way to a Better Life, page 58

I thought, Oh, Sarah must be one of these super gentle, herbal-tea-drinking, crystal-having kind of people. And she was just super down. She belched like a sailor.

2019 September 30, Jessica Hopper, Sasha Geffen, Jenn Pelly, “Building a Mystery: An Oral History of Lilith Fair”, in Vanity Fair‎

my homies is down so don't arouse my anger

1994, “Gangsta's Paradise”, Coolio (lyrics)

Nigga you ain't down. You heard what Nate said. If you ain't down for the dead homie you sure ain't down for us.

1995, Colors - Volume 4, page 28

Cause you're a whiteboy, you know, an' if you get locked up you gotta be down for the Aryans and the Surenos, you know? You gotta be down.

2009, Mike Flax, L.A. Unified, page 129

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 thing down.

2013, P.J. Hoover, Solstice, page 355

This, he muſt give me leave to tell him, is an abſolute, right down—falſehood.

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, page 84

Left again at 1.05 p.m., and for two miles it was over rolling county with easy grades, but a good deal of down timber.

1897, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Report of the Commissioner ..., page 72

The mere fact that there are quantities of trees near by with "loads” of down wood, does not signify that it is desirable camp fuel.

1920, Boys and Girls Bookshelf: A Practical Plan of Character Building ..., page 309

Will you please let me get two loads of down wood.

1935 (printed in 2009), Powell, Shenandoah Letters, 54

The average weight of down 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 of down wood recorded for a stand thus far is in the Carbon River Valley […]

1981, Ecological Characteristics of Old-growth Douglas-fir Forests, page 31

To down proud hearts that would not willing die.

1725, Philip Sidney, The works of the Honourable Sir Philip Sidney, kt., in prose and verse, London: W. Innys, page 156

‘I remember how you downed Beauclerk and Hamilton, the Wits, once at our House, – when they talked of Ghosts.’

1779, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 141

Now you have a social worker who downs 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.

1986 April 12, anonymous author, “One Day I'll Write a Book on This”, in Gay Community News, page 3

...that is, that the trade of the world is too little for us two, therefore one must down.

1933, Arthur Bryant, quoting Samuel Pepys (1664, February 2nd), Samuel Pepys: The Man in the Making, New York: Macmillan, page 215

After watching people downing drink on the train, I am in need of slaking my own thirst, so I pop into the station's Centurion Bar.

2022 November 30, Paul Bigland, “Destination Oban: a Sunday in Scotland”, in RAIL, number 971, page 75

She had a down on me. I don't know what for, I'm sure; because I never said a word.

1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 10

And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down

1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

...as they muſt needs acknowledge who have been on the Downs of Suſſex, and enjoyed that ravishing Proſpect of the Sea on one Hand, and the Country far and wide on the other.

1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, London: Pr. for S. Smith

She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair.

1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Lady Clare”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, page 198

The amateur nature-lover proceeds over the down, 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.

1898, H. G. Wells, Certain Personal Matters: A Collection of Material, Mainly Autobiographical‎, Lawrence & Bullen, page 256

Seven thousand broad-taild Sheepe gras'd on his Downes;

1636, George Sandys, “A Paraphrase Vpon Iob”, in Early English Books‎

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 Cottony Down, ſet with moſt ſharp and cruel pricks

1718, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged, London: W. Churchill, page 120

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 silken down, held in a common glass jar.

1998, Valerie Worth, The Crone's Book of Charms and Spells, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, page 152

But love him as he was, when youthful Grace, And the firſt Down began to ſhade his face

1717, John Dryden, The Dramatick Works of John Dryden, Esq., volume the fourth, London: Jacob Tonson, page 136

The servant to whom he put this question was a young fellow with chubby cheeks, small, dull eyes, and a round chin, covered with a colorless down.

1867, Ivan Sergheïevitch Turgenef [i.e., Ivan Turgenev], chapter I, in Eugene Schuyler, transl., Fathers and Sons […], New York, N.Y.: Leypoldt and Holt, page 1

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.

1696, Tho[mas] Southerne, Oroonoko: A Tragedy […], London: […] H[enry] Playford […]; B[enjamin] Tooke […]; [a]nd S. Buckley […], act V, scene the last [iv], pages 76–77

When in the down I sink my head, Sleep, Death's twin brother, times my breath.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], (please specify |part=prologue or epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)

What pain to quit the world, just made their own, Their nest so deeply downed, and built so high !

1742, Edward Young, The Complaint: or, Night-thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, London: R. Dodsley, page 264