Word Finder - downs

definition

A negative aspect; a downer.

example

I love almost everything about my job. The only down is that I can't take Saturdays off.

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A grudge (on someone).

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An act of swallowing an entire drink at once.

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A single play, from the time the ball is snapped (the start) to the time the whistle is blown (the end) when the ball is down, or is downed.

example

I bet after the third down, the kicker will replace the quarterback on the field.

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(crosswords) A clue whose solution runs vertically in the grid.

example

I haven't solved 12 or 13 across, but I've got most of the downs.

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A downstairs room of a two-story house.

example

She lives in a two-up two-down.

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Down payment.

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To knock (someone or something) down; to cause to come down, to fell.

example

A single rifle shot downed the mighty beast.

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To lower; to put (something) down.

example

The bell rang for lunch, and the workers downed their tools.

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To defeat; to overpower.

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To disparage, to put down.

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To go or come down; to descend.

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To drink or swallow, especially without stopping before the vessel containing the liquid is empty.

example

He downed an ale and ordered another.

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To render (the ball) dead, typically by touching the ground while in possession.

example

He downed it at the seven-yard line.

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(pocket billiards) To sink (a ball) into a hole or pocket.

example

He downed two balls on the break.

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(especially southern England) A hill, especially a chalk hill; rolling grassland

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The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England.

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(usually in the plural) A field, especially one used for horse racing.

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(chiefly in the plural) A tract of poor, sandy, undulating or hilly land near the sea, covered with fine turf which serves chiefly for the grazing of sheep.

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Soft, fluffy immature feathers which grow on young birds. Used as insulating material in duvets, sleeping bags and jackets.

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The pubescence of plants; the hairy crown or envelope of the seeds of certain plants, such as the thistle.

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The soft hair of the face when beginning to appear.

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That which is made of down, as a bed or pillow; that which affords ease and repose, like a bed of down.

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To cover, ornament, line, or stuff with down.

In this sea were laid down the shales of the Rolling Downs formation.

It is situated on the seaward slope of the South Downs; the position is sheltered from inclement winds, and the climate is generally mild.

A narrow Cambrian sea must have extended across central Australia from the Kimberley Goldfield in the north-west, through Tempe Downs and the Macdonnell chain in central Australia, to the South Australian highlands, central Victoria at Mansfield, and northern Tasmania.

The Cretaceous sea gradually receded and the plains of the Rolling Downs formation formed on its floor were covered by the sub-aerial and lacustrine deposits of the Desert Sandstone.

The clays of the Rolling Downs formation overlie a series of sands and drifts, saturated with water under high pressure, which discharges at the surface as a flowing well, when a borehole pierces the impermeable cover.

As the plains on the Rolling Downs formation are mostly waterless, the discovery of this deep reservoir of water has been of great aid in the development of central Australia.

The well-water was supposed to have percolated underground, through the Blythesdale Braystone, which outcrops in patches on the eastern edge of the Rolling Downs formation.

Some of his discoveries, including those of Pandora's Pass and the Darling Downs, were of great practical utility.

Meanwhile behind his back the royalists had risen all over England, the fleet in the Downs had declared for Charles, and the Scottish army under Hamilton had invaded the north.

This mountainous tract, which has an average breadth of from 50 to 60 m., is bounded west by the plain of Campania, now called the Terra di Lavoro, and east by the much broader and more extensive tract of Apulia or Puglia, composed partly of level plains, but for the most part of undulating downs, contrasting strongly with the mountain ranges of the Apennines, which rise abruptly above them.

On each side of that great chain are found extensive Tertiary deposits, sometimes, as in Tuscany, the district of Monferrat, &c., forming a broken, hilly country, at others spreading into broad plains or undulating downs, such as the Tavoliere of Puglia, and the tract that forms the spur of Italy from Bari to Otranto.

Downs restricted to the apteria or absent.

It was in 1875 that the Smithfield Club first provided the competitive classes for lambs, and in 1883 the champion plate offered for the best pen of sheep of any age in the show was for the first time won by lambs, a pen of Hampshire Downs.

It is situated on the summit of the Great Dividing Range, and is the centre of the rich pastoral and agricultural district of Darling Downs.

It is beautifully situated on high ground among the wooded undulations of the North Downs, above the valley of the river Darent.

On the northern inland downs liquorice grows wild and is collected by the peasants and sent down to Alexandretta.

Hitherto from Oxford its course, though greatly winding, has lain generally in a southerly direction, but it now bends eastward, and breaches the chalk hills in a narrow gap, dividing the Chilterns from the downs of Berkshire or White Horse Hills.

The White Horse Hills and the Chilterns strike right across the Thames basin, but almost their entire drainage from either flank lies within it, and similarly a great part of the low-lying Weald, though marked off from the rest of the basin by the North Downs, drains into it through these hills.

The basin thus presents interesting problems. The existence of wide valleys where the small upper waters of the Cherwell, Evenlode and Coln now flow, the occurrence of waterborne deposits in their beds from the northwest of England and from Wales, and the fact that the Thames, like its lower southern tributaries which pierce the North Downs, has been able to maintain a deep valley through the chalk elevation at Goring, are considered to point to the former existence of a much larger river, in the system of which were included the upper waters of the present Severn, Dee and other rivers of the west.

The country west of the Drakensberg, though part of the main South African tableland, is not uniform in character, consisting of (I) elevated downs, (2) their slopes, (3) the flat " bottom " land.

The downs or plateaus occupy all the southern part of the country, sloping gradually westward from the Drakensberg.

After his defeat and death on the hill on the Sussex Downs then called Senlac, the duke of Normandy had the country at his mercy, but he recognized the importance of London's position, and moved forward with the greatest caution and tact.

It is an oldfashioned place on the skirts of Savernake Forest, lying in a valley of the chalk uplands known as Marlborough Downs, and traversed by the river Kennet.

The direct passes across it from Herat (the Baba and the Ardewan) wind amongst masses of disintegrating sandstone for some miles on each side of the dividing watershed, but farther west the rounded knolls of the rain-washed downs may be crossed almost at any point without difficulty.

Sir George Ayscue, who had lately returned from the West Indies, whither he had been sent to subdue the Royalist party in Barbados, had a sharp encounter with a Dutch convoy while on his way up Channel to the Downs, and had captured several prizes.

Ayscue remained in the Downs with 16.

Soon after Blake had gone, Tromp appeared in the Downs with a stronger force and threatened an attack on Ayscue.

In the 27th of September the Dutch appeared in force off the mouth of the Thames, and Blake, whose fleet was collected in the Downs, stood to sea.

It brought its fleet back, and then divided the ships, sending some to the north with Penn, and keeping the others, 40 in all, with Blake in the Downs.

It stands on a wooded upland, amid the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain.

Right back into British and even older times the main direction which commerce and travellers followed across southern and western England to the Straits of Dover and the Continent lay from Canterbury along the southern chalk slope of the North Downs to near Guildford, then by the Hog's Back to Farnham.

Its northern shores are bordered by the beautiful basaltic cones of the Bakony mountains, the volcanic soil of which produces grapes yielding excellent wine; the southern consist partly of a marshy plain, partly of downs.

The illuminations in London and the great provincial towns were magnificent, and all the hills from Ben Nevis to the South Downs were crowned with bonfires.

The county is divided centrally, from west to east, by the well-marked range of hills known as the North Downs, entering Kent from Surrey.

In the west above Westerham these hills exceed 800 ft.; to the east the height is much less, but even in Kent (for in Surrey they are higher) the North Downs form a more striking physical feature than their height would indicate.

In the west the Darent, flowing north to the Thames below Dartford, pierces the hills north of Sevenoaks, but its waters are collected chiefly from a subsidiary ridge of the Downs running parallel to the main line and south of it, and known as the Ragstone Ridge, from 600 to 800 ft.

The easternmost penetration of the Downs is that effected by the Stour (Great Stour) which rises on their southern face, flows S.E.

At a few points, however, as at Gravesend, spurs of the North Downs descend directly upon the shore.

From Pegwell Bay south to a point near Deal the coast is flat, and the drained marshes or levels of the lower Stour extend to the west; but thence the coast rises again into chalk cliffs, the eastward termination of the North Downs, the famous white cliffs which form the nearest point of England to continental Europe, overlooking the Strait of Dover.

To the south the London basin is succeeded by the North Downs, an elevated ridge of country consisting of an outcrop of chalk which extends from Westerham to Folkestone with an irregular breadth generally of 3 to 6 miles, but expanding to nearly 12 miles at Dartford and Gravesend and also to the north of Folkestone.

To the south of the Downs there is a narrow valley formed by the Gault, a fossiliferous blue clay.

In the large portion of the county sheltered by the Downs the climate is milder and more equable, and vegetation is somewhat earlier.

Farringford House in the parish was for some time the home of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who is commemorated by a tablet in All Saints' church and by a great cross on the high downs above the town.

There are golf links on the downs.

The Bath, Clifton and West of England Zoological Society owns small but extremely well-managed Zoological Gardens, well situated on the edge of Clifton Downs.

In 1749, having been selected as a Harbour of Refuge for the Downs, it underwent great improvements, and henceforward paid £200 yearly to Sandwich out of the droits for clearing the Channel and repairing the banks of the river Stour within the Liberty; but by 1790 the harbour was of small account.

It must be further remarked that both the " dunepans," or depressions, which are naturally marshy through their defective drainage, and the geest grounds - that is, the grounds along the foot of the downs - have been in various places either planted with wood or turned into arable and pasture land; while the numerous springs at the base of the dunes are of the utmost value to the great cities situated on the marshy soil inland, the example set by Amsterdam in 1853 in supplying itself with this water having been readily followed by Leiden, the Hague, Flushing, &c.

He had to contend against a strong peace party in Holland the Spaniards sheltered themselves under the English Downs by the side of an English squadron.

The circumstances under which the battle of the Downs was won were galling to the pride of the English people, and intensified the growing unfriendliness between two nations, one of whom possessed and the other claimed supremacy upon the seas.

But in 1639-1640 civil discords in England stood in the way of a strong foreign policy, and the adroit Aarssens was able so " to sweeten the bitterness of the pill " as to bring King Charles not merely to " overlook the scandal of the Downs," but to consent to the marriage of the princess had a quasi-independence of its own.