Touch down or touchdown?
touch down is a verb meaning “To land an aircraft or spacecraft”; touchdown is a noun meaning “A six-point score occurring when the ball enters possession of a team's player…”. Use touch down as a verb and touchdown as a noun. touch down is written as two words and touchdown as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between touch down and touchdown?
| touch down | touchdown | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | To land an aircraft or spacecraft To score a touchdown | A six-point score occurring when the ball enters possession of a team's player in the opponent's end zone A defensive action of grounding the ball in the team's own in-goal to stop the play |
| Example | The plane will touch down in Heathrow at about 2 o'clock | Today I scored my first touchdown |
| Forms | none | touchdowns |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈtʌt͡ʃ.daʊn/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 9.1 times per million words |
Sources: touch down and touchdown in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of touch down and touchdown
touch down
- 1
To land an aircraft or spacecraft
The plane will touch down in Heathrow at about 2 o'clock
- 2
Alternative form of touchdown
- 3
To score a touchdown
- 4
To score a try
touchdown
- 1
A six-point score occurring when the ball enters possession of a team's player in the opponent's end zone
Today I scored my first touchdown
- 2
A defensive action of grounding the ball in the team's own in-goal to stop the play
- 3
A try (scoring play of grounding the ball in the opposing team's in-goal)
- 4
The moment when an aircraft or spacecraft makes first or final contact with the ground during a landing
The passengers audibly relaxed at touchdown
- 5
The moment of contact of a tornado with the ground
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, touch down or touchdown?
touch down is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; touchdown 9.1 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).