Down

How to spell down

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce down

What does down mean?

1. adverbToward or in a lower place or position.
2. nounThe fine, soft feathers of birds, used as insulation in bedding and clothing.
3. verbTo swallow something quickly, or to bring something to the ground.
4. adjectiveFeeling sad, low, or discouraged.

Down in a sentence

• adverb

  She walked down the stairs to answer the door.

• noun

  The winter jacket was filled with goose down for extra warmth.

• verb

  He would down a glass of water before every meal.

• adjective

  She felt down for weeks after losing her job.

• adverb

  The prices came down sharply after the holiday sales ended.

• noun

  She chose a duvet stuffed with natural down rather than synthetic fibres.

Where does down come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The directional word 'down' has a surprising origin: it comes from the Old English phrase ofdune, meaning literally 'off the hill', built on dun, the Old English word for a hill or open upland. Over time the phrase shortened to adune and then simply to down, so that what once described moving away from a hilltop came to mean moving toward a lower position generally. This is why the chalk hills of southern England are still called the Downs, preserving the original 'hill' sense that the everyday adverb has otherwise hidden. A separate and unrelated word, the soft 'down' of feathers, arrived from Old Norse dunn during the Viking period and simply happens to be spelled the same way. Both words are short, native, and phonetically regular, which keeps the spelling about as transparent as English gets.

How the word is built

• down (from Old English ofdune: off the hill, from dun meaning hill)