Downtown

How to spell downtown

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce downtown

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does downtown mean?

1. adverbTo or in the central or main business area of a city.
2. adjectiveRelating to or located in the central business area of a city.
3. nounThe central business district of a city.

Downtown in a sentence

• adverb

  She commutes downtown every morning for work.

• adjective

  They rented a small downtown apartment close to the offices.

• noun

  The downtown was crowded with tourists during the festival.

• adverb

  The new restaurant is located downtown near the station.

• adjective

  The company moved into a modern downtown tower last spring.

• noun

  Much of the downtown was redeveloped over the past decade.

Where does downtown come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound formed straightforwardly from the native English words 'down' and 'town', both of Germanic origin: 'down' goes back to Old English 'dun', meaning a hill, which by way of the phrase 'off the hill' came to mean 'in a lower direction', while 'town' descends from Old English 'tun', originally an enclosure or homestead and later a populated settlement. The fused term arose in nineteenth century American English, where it described movement toward the older, lower, more densely built part of a city; in New York the original commercial heart sat at the southern, lower tip of Manhattan, so heading there was literally going 'down town'. From that geographic sense it broadened to mean the central business district of any city, regardless of compass direction. Because both halves are common everyday words and the join is seamless, the spelling rarely troubles adults; the only point to remember is that it is written as one solid word with no space or hyphen.

How the word is built

• down (lower, toward)
• town (settlement)