Word.ws English Dictionary

down bad

down bad adjective: in a difficult situation, despondent.

Adjective

down bad (not comparable)

  1. (slang, African-American Vernacular) In a difficult situation, despondent.
    • Walter was down bad after his wife had left him.
  2. (slang) Romantically or sexually attracted to someone at the expense of one's dignity.
    • He was down bad over that disrespectful girl.
    • Lord forgive me, I'm down bad for a white boy again.

Forms of down bad

alternative formdownbad

Questions about down bad

What does down bad mean?
Down bad means in a difficult situation, despondent.
What part of speech is down bad?
Down bad is an adjective.

Words near down bad in the dictionary

  1. down antiquarks
  2. down at heel
  3. down at heels
  4. down at the heel
  5. down at the heels
  6. down bad
  7. down below
  8. down bow
  9. down bows
  10. down bubble
  11. down but not out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: down bad (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-down bad.wav.

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