noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A downward trend, or the beginnings of one.

   "Near-synonym: decline"

2. 2
   a worsening of business or economic activity wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   To turn downwards.
2. 2
   To decline.

Synonyms

All synonyms

boombottoming outbusiness cyclebusiness fluctuationsbustcascade

Antonyms

All antonyms

improvementincreaseuptickupturn

Example

More examples

"The best companies are usually investing during an economic downturn."

Etymology

From down- + turn.

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