Downstroke

//ˈdaʊnˌstɹoʊk// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A downward stroke, especially one that is part of a sequence of alternating upward and downward strokes.

    "It was written, not printed; written in a clear, even hand, with thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes, very large, easier than print, and so beautiful that Lucy stared at it for a whole minute and forgot about reading it."

  2. 2
    a stroke normally made in a downward direction wordnet

Example

More examples

"It was written, not printed; written in a clear, even hand, with thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes, very large, easier than print, and so beautiful that Lucy stared at it for a whole minute and forgot about reading it."

Etymology

From down + stroke.

Related phrases

up for the downstroke

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