down

The word “down” means from a higher place to a lower one. In plain terms, one of English's most flexible small words — covering direction, sadness, system outages, drinking fast, and soft feathers.

“Down” is pronounced DOWN (/ˈdaʊ̯n/ in IPA).

Here is “down” used in a sentence: “She climbed down the ladder carefully.”

The opposite of “down” — its antonyms — are up, across, back, backwards and rearwards.

Depending on how it is used, “down” can be an adverb, a preposition, an adjective, a verb and a noun.

The word “down” comes from Old English. From Old English dūne, a shortened form of ofdūne, literally "off the hill" — combining of ("off") with dūn ("hill").

“Down” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Down” has 6 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: from a higher place to a lower one.

'Down' describes movement or position from a higher place to a lower one, as in 'walk down the stairs.' 'Up' is its exact opposite, describing movement toward a higher place, as in 'climb up.' They form the most basic vertical pair in English, marking the two directions along which things rise or fall.

'Down' can be both. As an adverb it modifies a verb, as in 'she sat down.' As a preposition it takes an object, as in 'he ran down the hill.' It also works as an adjective ('feeling down'), a noun (soft feathers), and even a verb ('to down a drink').

Besides movement to a lower place, 'down' can mean sad or low in spirits ('feeling down'), reduced ('prices are down'), or not working ('the system is down'). As a noun it means soft feathers, and as a verb it means to swallow quickly or bring something to the ground.

'The sun went down behind the hills' shows movement to a lower position. 'Sit down, please' directs someone to lower themselves. 'Turn the volume down' means reduce it. In each case, 'down' modifies the verb and points to a lower place, level, or amount.