downward

1. 1
   adverb

   In the direction of a lower place or rank, or a smaller amount or value.

   Smoke curled downward in the cold air outside the cabin.

   Her grades trended downward during the spring semester.

   Similardown, lower

   Oppositeupward, up

   Note

   Down plus the suffix -ward makes the word. It covers every kind of descent, even the passing of property through generations. Shakespeare, in All's Well That Ends Well, has a ring that "downward hath succeeded in his house / From son to son." In modern prose its most familiar companion is pressure: downward pressure on prices, ratings or creditworthiness, the steady force that pushes a value lower.

2. 2
   adjective

   Moving, sloping, or oriented toward a lower level or position.

   A sudden downward movement of the elevator startled the passengers.

   The report showed a downward trend in monthly sales.

   Similardescending, downhill

   Oppositeupward, rising, ascending, climbing

   Note

   The adjective usually stands before its noun: a downward glance, a downward trend, the downward direction that H. G. Wells's Kemp takes on a hill-road in The Invisible Man (1897). Older poetry stretches it further. In Thomson's Spring (1728), "the downward Sun" is the sun sinking toward evening. Shakespeare's boar in Venus and Adonis has a "downward eye" that "still looketh for a grave."

3. 3
   adverb

   At a level or position that is lower than a given point of reference.

   Downward, at the base of the cliff, the waves broke against black rocks.

   The orchard lies a hundred feet downward from the farmhouse.

   Similarbelow, down, beneath

   Oppositeabove, up

   Note

   Here nothing moves; the word marks where a part sits. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) describes Dagon as "upward Man / And downward Fish," a sea monster split into upper and lower halves. Paired with upward like this, it means "in the lower part" or "below," which keeps it apart from the sense of heading lower.

4. 4
   adjective

   Situated at a level or position lower than a given point of reference.

   Similarlower

   Oppositeupper, higher

   Note

   Older literary English could use the adjective purely for where something lies. In Pope's Windsor-Forest (1713), a shepherd looking into a river sees "the downward Skies," the sky lying below him in the water. Thomas Taylor's 1793 translation of Plato's Phaedo even grades it, sending a river "into the more downward parts" beneath the earth. Unlike the moving or sloping meaning, these things lie low rather than head down.

5. 5
   adverb

   Toward the south; in a southerly direction.

   After the harvest, the crews drifted downward from the Dakotas into Texas.

   The highway runs downward from Seattle through Oregon into California.

   Similarsouth, southward

   Oppositenorth, northward, up

   Note

   Here direction is read off the map: with north at the top, going south means going down the page, the same habit behind down south. Havelock Ellis uses it this way in Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1927), sweeping from Alaska downward to Brazil. It suits broad surveys across named places, usually framed with from and to. Where a slope or descent is also possible, context must make clear it is not the ordinary sense of descent.

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