Downthrow

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Defeat; ruin.

    "These continued, led to the downthrow of the Russian expedition. The French, however, nothing daunted, pushed on, and arrived near Moscow […]"

  2. 2
    A depression of the strata on one side of a fault; also, the degree of downward displacement in such a fault.

    "The geology at the site is mainly sandstone and shale overlaid with boulder clay, and is extremely confused. The ground is badly faulted, and at Micklam [Point], near Whitehaven, there is a downthrow of 480 ft."

Synonyms

All synonyms
defeatdowncastoverthrowoverturnprecipitation

Example

More examples

"These continued, led to the downthrow of the Russian expedition. The French, however, nothing daunted, pushed on, and arrived near Moscow […]"

Etymology

From down + throw.

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