Lowdown
adj, adv, noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 inside information, the story or truth. uncountable
"All the reporters hoped to be the first to get the lowdown on the celebrity's marriage plans."
- 2 A lowlife, a despicable person. uncountable
- 1 Unfair; scoundrelly; shameful.
"lowdown tactics"
- 2 seedy, sketchy, disreputable
"So there I was, in the front row of course (it was my reportorial duty), with a bunch of gay men and straight women. And we're all involved in a lowdown — but eminently "Safe" — celebration of the erotic possibilities of the male body."
- 3 down low; purporting to be heterosexual while engaged in sex with men.
- 1 Unfairly; dishonourably; in a deceitful or mean manner.
"“I say, that’s playing it a bit low down,” I protested."
Example
More examples"Here's the lowdown on what I learned during the first six months."
Etymology
Compound adjective of low + down in the sense of "humble" recorded in the 1540s, in the sense of "vulgar, far down the social scale" in 1888. Recorded as a noun in 1915 in the slang sense of secret or inside information.
More for "lowdown"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.