noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An act in which a company downsizes or is downsized. countable, uncountable

   "He lost his job in the last downsizing."

2. 2
   the reduction of expenditures in order to become financially stable wordnet
3. 3
   Miniaturization. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   Reducing engine's capacity at same power or increasing engine's power without increasing capacity. countable, uncountable

   "Downsizing is one of the leading trends in automotive engine design."

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of downsize form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

curtailmentlayoffretrenchmentretrenchment

Example

More examples

"Corporations are downsizing and reducing the amount of profits they put back into R&D."

Etymology

From downsize + -ing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.