# downright

> English word · Adverb · IPA /ˈdaʊnɹaɪt/ · frequency rank #17,600

## Definitions
1. Completely, wholly.
2. Of acts or speech: directly and unambiguously; clearly, plainly.
3. Straight down; perpendicularly.
4. Immediately at that place and time; without delay; altogether, at once, then and there.

## Etymology
The adverb is derived from Middle English dounright, dounriȝt (“right down, straight down; face down; vertically; used for emphasis: outright, downright”), and then either:
* possibly an aphetic form of adounright (“straight down; directly, immediately (?)”), from adoun (“downward”, adverb) (from Old English adūn, adūne (“down, downward”, adverb), ultimately from dūn (“hill, mountain”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūnā, *dūnu (“hill; sand dune”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“haze, mist; smoke”)) + right (“direct; straight; etc.”, adjective) (from Old English riht (“straight; etc.”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to straighten”)); or
* from doun (“down, downward; etc.”, adverb) (from Old English dūne (“down”), ultimately from dūn (“hill, mountain”): see above) + right.
By surface analysis, down (adverb) + right (adjective).
The adjective and noun are derived from the adverb. Noun noun sense 1 (“low grade of wool”) may be from the obsolete adjective adjective sense 2.2 (“in its most basic form; ordinary”).

## Common misspellings (15)
`ddownright`, `donwright`, `downirght`, `downnright`, `downrgiht`, `downrigght`, `downrighht`, `downrightt`, `downrigth`, `downrihgt`, `downrright`, `dowrnight`, `dowwnright`, `dwonright`, `odwnright`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/downright