downtown

Pluraldowntowns (some meanings)

1. 1
   nounCanadaUSuncountable

   The district serving as a city's or town's main business area, usually in or near its geographical center.

   Rising rents have pushed many family-owned shops out of downtown.

   The summer festival drew thousands of visitors into downtown over the weekend.

   Similarcenter

   Oppositeuptown, suburbs, outskirts

   Note

   A North American word, chiefly at home in the US and Canada, built simply from down + town. Speakers elsewhere tend to say town center or city center, and Australians often just call it the city. It takes a plural, downtowns, but it frequently goes without an article (out of downtown, into downtown), which keeps it close to the adverb of direction.

2. 2
   adverb

   In or toward the central business area of a city or town.

   The firm moved its offices downtown to be closer to its clients.

   We rode the train downtown to watch the parade.

   Oppositeuptown

   Note

   Like home, it needs no preposition after a verb of motion: you go downtown, move downtown, ride downtown. A distance can sit right beside it, as in go downtown four blocks, and degree comes with further or farther downtown. Tony Hatch's "Downtown" (1964), sung by Petula Clark, turned the bare phrase go downtown into a cure for loneliness.

3. 3
   adjective

   Located in or relating to the central business district.

   Downtown traffic grows heavy during the evening rush.

   The company relocated to a sleek downtown high-rise last year.

   Similarcentral

   Oppositesuburban, uptown

   Note

   The adjective sits before its noun: a downtown job, a downtown high-rise, and, before a place name, downtown Karachi, where it marks out the center of one particular city. It is simply down plus town. It is usually not compared, and when it is, English builds the comparison with further, farther or more (further downtown), rather than adding endings.

4. 4
   adverb

   In basketball, from outside the three-point line, or generally well away from the basket.

   With seconds left, the guard launched a shot from downtown for the win.

   The team fired away from downtown all night rather than driving inside.

   Note

   Court talk borrows the city map here. A shot from downtown comes from beyond the three-point line and counts for three if it falls. The usual frame is from downtown, and way downtown stretches the distance for a long-range attempt well past the arc. The word works as an adverb of place, so it follows from much as inside or outside would.

5. 5
   nounslangUS

   Slang for the human genitals.

   The comedian built his whole set around jokes about getting hit in the downtown.

   He wore protective gear to shield his downtown during the match.

   Similargroin, crotch, privates

   Note

   A jokey US slang term that leans on the word's plain parts, down plus town, to point below the waist without saying more. It belongs to casual talk and comedy and softens a reference rather than spelling it out. Unlike the city-center noun, which usually goes bare, it takes a determiner the way a body part does: the downtown, his downtown.

6. 6
   nounslanguncountable

   Slang for heroin.

   She had been chasing downtown for years before she finally got clean.

   A single bag of downtown cost more than he could spare that week.

   Similarsmack, junk, dope, horse, brown

   Note

   Street slang for heroin, one of many coded terms that let users talk about the drug without naming it. It behaves as a mass noun, like the substance it stands for: you say a bag of downtown, not a downtown. Since the same word carries a slang anatomical meaning too, the surrounding talk is what tells the two apart.

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