Slowdown

How to spell slowdown

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce slowdown

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does slowdown mean?

1. nounA reduction in speed, activity, or rate of progress.

Slowdown in a sentence

• The factory union organised a deliberate slowdown to press their demands.

• Economists warned of a sharp slowdown in consumer spending this quarter.

Where does slowdown come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a homegrown English compound built from two very old native words. The first half, slow, descends from the Old English slaw, which meant dull, sluggish, or lacking in speed, and it has carried that core sense unbroken for well over a thousand years. The second half, down, comes from Old English dune, a shortening of the phrase of dune meaning off the hill, which gave us the general idea of moving to a lower level or lesser state. The two words were welded into a single noun fairly recently, emerging in early twentieth-century American usage to describe a deliberate reduction in pace, especially in industry and the economy. The spelling trap is purely about the join: the verb phrase stays two words (to slow down), while the noun is written solid as one, slowdown.

How the word is built

• slow (Old English slaw: sluggish, not quick)
• down (Old English dune: downward), joined as a compound noun