Downturn

How to spell downturn

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce downturn

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does downturn mean?

1. nounA reduction in economic, business, or other activity; a decline.

Downturn in a sentence

• The economic downturn forced the company to freeze all new hiring.

• Sales suffered a sharp downturn after the factory closed.

Where does downturn come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound formed from two very old native words. 'Down' descends from the Old English 'dun', originally a word for a hill, which gave rise to the phrase 'off the hill' and so to the sense of a downward direction. 'Turn' comes from Old English 'turnian' and Latin 'tornare', meaning to rotate on a lathe or to shape something by spinning it. Joined together, the compound describes a turning movement that heads downward. It is a relatively modern formation, appearing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it settled quickly into economic language to name a decline in trade or activity. Because both parts are familiar everyday words written exactly as they sound, the only real spelling decision is whether to write it as one word, which it now standardly is.

How the word is built

• down (downward direction)
• turn (a change in course)