down
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "down", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "down" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "down" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
down is anEnglishadv. It means: From a higher position to a lower one; downwards. Pronounced /daʊn/. It ranks #137 in English word frequency. Often confused with dw and dun.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adv |
| IPA | /daʊn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #137 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for down is 4 letters long, classified as anadv, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /daʊn/. Corpus data places it at rank #137 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for down, with forms such as "ddown", "donw", and "downn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "dw", "dun", "DWP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Old English of- Proto-Germanic *dūnaz? Proto-Celtic *dūnombor.? Proto-West Germanic *dūnā Old English dūne Old English ofdūne Old English adūne Old English dūne Middle English doun English down From Middle English doun, doune (“down”), from O… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is down, spelled D-O-W-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1From a higher position to a lower one; downwards.
- 2To or towards what is considered the bottom of something, irrespective of whether this is presently physically lower.
- 3At a lower or further place or position along a set path.
- 4To the south (as south is at the bottom of typical maps).
- 5Away from the city (regardless of direction).
- 6At or towards any place that is visualised as 'down' by virtue of local features or local convention, or arbitrarily, irrespective of direction or elevation change.
- 7Forward, straight ahead.
- 8In the direction leading away from the principal terminus, away from milepost zero.
- 9Away from Oxford or Cambridge.
- 10To a subordinate or less prestigious position or rank.
- 11Towards the opponent's side (in ball-sports).
- 12So as to lessen quantity, level or intensity.
- 13So as to reduce size, weight or volume.
- 14From less to greater detail.
- 15From a remoter or higher antiquity.
- 16Into a state of non-operation.
- 17So as to secure or compress something to the floor, ground, or other (usually horizontal) surface.
- 18On paper (or in a durable record).
- 19So as to be cowed into silence.
- 20As a down payment.
- 21In a downwards direction; vertically.
- 22Used with verbs to indicate that the action of the verb was carried to some state of completion, permanence, or success rather than being of indefinite duration.
- 23Get down.
Etymology
Etymology tree Old English of- Proto-Germanic *dūnaz? Proto-Celtic *dūnombor.? Proto-West Germanic *dūnā Old English dūne Old English ofdūne Old English adūne Old English dūne Middle English doun English down From Middle English doun, doune (“down”), from Old English dūne (“down”), aphetic form of adūne (“down, downward”), from earlier ofdūne (“down”, literally “off the hill”), from of (“of, off of”) + dūn (“hill, mount, dune, down”). More at Etymology 2 below. For the development from directional phrases to prepositions, compare Old Frisian dene (“down”, adverb, literally “(to the) floor”), Middle Low German dāle (“down, downwards”, literally “(in/to the) dale/valley”), whence German Low German dal (“down”). Compare also Saterland Frisian deel (“down”, literally “to/into the dale”), West Frisian del (“down”). Cognate with Scots doon (“down”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddown,donw,downn,dowwn,dwon,odwn
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for down
Misspelling Variants of "down"
Frequency rank: #137 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: