Word.ws English Dictionary

down under

down under prepositional phrase: in Australia.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In Australia.
    • Surfing is a popular sport down under.
  2. (idiomatic) Into Australia; to Australia.
    • We traveled down under for our holiday.
    • Thank you Boris and I want to thank that fella down under. Thank you very much, pal; appreciate it Mr. Prime Minister.2021 September 15, Joe Biden, White House
  3. By extension, anywhere, or to anywhere, south of the Equator
  4. (euphemistic, rare) Hell; in Hell.

Noun

down under (uncountable)

  1. (euphemistic, slang) The genitalia; the groin area.

Forms of down under

alternative formDown Under

Origin of down under

Refers to the fact that the Australian continent lies south of, colloquially thought of as 'below' or 'under', the equator.

Questions about down under

What does down under mean?
Down under means in Australia.
What part of speech is down under?
Down under can be a prepositional phrase or a noun.

Words near down under in the dictionary

  1. down tools
  2. down train
  3. down trains
  4. down tube
  5. down tubes
  6. down under
  7. down upon one's luck
  8. down with
  9. down with one's dust
  10. down with the dust
  11. down with the kids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: down under (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 under.ogg.

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