Downed

How to spell downed

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce downed

What does downed mean?

1. verbKnocked or brought something to the ground, often an aircraft or an opponent.
2. verbSwallowed or drank something rapidly.
3. adjectiveHaving fallen to the ground or been put out of action, especially a cable or aircraft.

Downed in a sentence

• verb

  Anti-aircraft fire downed two enemy planes during the raid.

• verb

  He downed a glass of water before the interview to calm his nerves.

• adjective

  Crews worked through the night to repair the downed power lines.

• verb

  The boxer downed his rival with a single punch in the third round.

• verb

  She downed her coffee and rushed out to catch the early train.

• adjective

  Rescuers searched the forest for the downed helicopter and its crew.

Where does downed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the everyday word 'down', whose history is more surprising than it looks. The adverb 'down' comes from Old English 'dūne', which was a worn-down form of 'ofdūne', literally meaning 'off the hill' or 'from the hill'. That phrase contained 'dūn', an Old English noun for a hill or high open ground, a word still alive in the place-name element 'the Downs'. Over time 'off the hill' came to mean simply 'in a lower position', and the sense of moving or pushing toward the ground stuck. From there English developed a verb 'to down', meaning to bring something low, and 'downed' is its regular past form, made with the ordinary '-ed' ending. Because the root vowel is the familiar 'ow' of 'town' and 'crown', the spelling rarely causes trouble.

How the word is built

• down (from Old English dūne 'downward')
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)