Downtime

How to spell downtime

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce downtime

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does downtime mean?

1. nounA period during which a machine, computer, or system is not operating, usually because of a fault or maintenance.
2. nounTime spent relaxing or not working, used to rest and recover.

Downtime in a sentence

• The server upgrade caused two hours of downtime overnight.

• She spends her downtime reading novels and walking the dog.

• The factory scheduled the repairs to minimise costly downtime.

• After a hectic week the team needed some real downtime.

Where does downtime come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent modern compound, built simply from the everyday English words 'down' and 'time'. The word 'down' descends from the Old English 'dune', a shortened form of 'ofdune', meaning 'off the hill' or 'downward', while 'time' comes from the Old English 'tima', meaning a stretch or period. The figurative use of 'down' to mean 'not working' or 'out of operation', as in a machine that has broken down, grew up alongside industrial and then computing machinery. 'Downtime' itself appeared in American technical and factory usage in the early to middle twentieth century to describe the period when equipment sat idle and unproductive. From that industrial origin it later softened into the relaxed everyday sense of personal rest, the time when a person is, in effect, switched off. Because both halves are common and obvious, the spelling holds no surprises beyond remembering it is written as one solid word.

How the word is built

• down (adverb of cessation or being not operational)
• time (period)