Word.ws English Dictionary

down for the count

down for the count adjective: decisively beaten; defeated; rendered irrelevant for the long term.

Adjective

down for the count (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Decisively beaten; defeated; rendered irrelevant for the long term.
    • As the company grew, one after another of its smaller competitors ended up down for the count.
    • “But what puts me down for the count is the action of the fellow. Never showed up; just made her miss two performances.”1912, Harold MacGrath, chapter 7, in The Place of Honeymoons
  2. (figuratively) Soundly unconscious, either because asleep or because otherwise knocked out.
    • A: Look at him, he's out like a light! B: Yeah, he had a long day! And now he's down for the count.
    Synonyms:
    out cold
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see down, for, the, count: lying upon the mat of a boxing ring while the referee counts the fighter out.
    • Liston was down for the count more than once before rising up to regain command of the fight.

Examples of down for the count in a sentence

  • But every time the music world thought it was down for the count, the orchestra has managed to rise again.1991 November 4, Allan Kozinn, “Despite Odds, Many of Them, A Bedeviled Orchestra Persists”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from...
  • So, while Europe is still groggy and the U.S. is just starting to show signs of a pulse (and Japan of course is still down for the count), little Korea will grow anywhere from 3.2% to 6% this year.2002 March 11, “Veni, Vidi, Gucci”, in TIME, archived from the original on 11 May 2013:

Synonyms of down for the count

Origin of down for the count

The figurative senses are extended from the literal one.

Questions about down for the count

What does down for the count mean?
Down for the count means decisively beaten; defeated; rendered irrelevant for the long term.
How do you use down for the count in a sentence?
But every time the music world thought it was down for the count, the orchestra has managed to rise again.
What part of speech is down for the count?
Down for the count is an adjective.

Words near down for the count in the dictionary

  1. down east
  2. Down Easter
  3. Down Easters
  4. down feather
  5. down feathers
  6. down for the count
  7. down home
  8. down horrendous
  9. down in flames
  10. down in the dumps
  11. down in the heel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: down for the count (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-down for the count.ogg.

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