Downness
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The property of being a down quark. uncountable
"Each of the flavors has a corresponding property, so that the down quark carries "downness," although upness and downness are rarely mentioned,"
- 2 The quality or state of being physically down. uncountable
"To some degree this feature determines the profiles themselves: upness in B and downness in A, but the downness of C, more than a downness of relaxation, is a downness of being held down."
- 3 Lowness of pitch or tone. uncountable
"If children are taught to listen to certain definite sounds (whisles, birds, singing, etc.) they will soon observe something as to the "upness" and "downness" of tones;"
- 4 The quality or state of being low in a social hierarchy; lowliness. uncountable
"The downs spend a lot of time taking the ups out to lunch and dinner to explain their downness."
- 5 The state of having a low or disparaging mood; a feeling of depression, helplessness, or dislike. uncountable
"[…] the transition from the emotion of grief to the emotion of depression seems to be made by way of a mood that we might call depression —a generalized downness in one's view of things that then attaches itself, more or less non-rationally, to "objects" like the new president and my deficit of talent."
Example
More examples"Each of the flavors has a corresponding property, so that the down quark carries "downness," although upness and downness are rarely mentioned,"
Etymology
From down + -ness.
Related phrases
More for "downness"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.