Word.ws English Dictionary

down-line

down-line is the alternative spelling of down line.

Meaning of down line

Noun

down line (plural down lines)

  1. A railway line on which trains travel away from a major terminus.
    • The down line was cleared about midnight, or nine hours after the accident, but the up line was not in a state to admit of the traffic being resumed until one o'clock on the next day.1857, Alan J Day, Verena Hoffman, The Annual Register of World Events
  2. the next and subsequent flights in an itinerary.
    • If you miss a flight, the airline will likely cancel the down line.
  3. (attributive, often) A member or members of a multi-level marketing scheme recruited by another (their up line) and paying that recruiter a portion of their earnings.
    • I declared to everyone that I would concentrate on selling, not on recruiting, and build my downline slowly over time.1998, Charles F. Amick, Network Marketing: How to Play by Your Own Rules and Win, page 148

Adjective

down-line (comparative more down-line, superlative most down-line)

  1. Describing a lower level in a hierarchical management structure

Forms of down-line

Noun
pluraldown-lines
Adjective
comparativemore down-line
superlativemost down-line

Questions about down-line

What does down-line mean?
Down-line means describing a lower level in a hierarchical management structure.
What is down-line the alternative spelling of?
Down-line is the alternative spelling of down line.
What part of speech is down-line?
Down-line is an adjective.

Words near down-line in the dictionary

  1. down-hearted
  2. down-heartedly
  3. down-heartedness
  4. down-hole
  5. down-home
  6. down-line
  7. down-lines
  8. down-low
  9. down-lows
  10. down-modulate
  11. down-modulated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: down-line (page history and authors); down line (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “down-line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/down-line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.