downers

Noun (1)

downer (plural downers)

1. (slang) A negative drug trip.
   • Normally those pills give me a boost, but last night they gave me a downer.
2. (slang) Any drug that has depressant qualities.
   • Eye Girl is very moody. She is always zooted up on some really foul combination of uppers and downers and Rollerblading. Her bouts of Rollerblading seem to coincide with fights with Eye Guy.1997, Maggie Estep, Diary of an Emotional Idiot: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 6

   Antonyms:

   upper

3. (slang) Something or someone disagreeable, dispiriting or depressing; a killjoy.
   • You don't really need to know me. I'm kind of a downer.2009, Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are

   Synonyms:

   buzzkill

4. A livestock animal that has collapsed.
   • The ten-dollar bill was for eating money and the prod pole to be used when the train stopped for water in getting "downers" back on their feet.1964, John Hendrix, If I Can Do It Horseback: A Cow-Country Sketchbook, page 40
5. A form of industrial action in which workers down tools and refuse to work.
   • In the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, a strike may be a downer or a stoppage as defined by the Department.1978, C. T. B. Smith, Great Britain. Dept. of Employment, Manpower Papers (issue 15, page 158)

Noun (2)

downer (plural downers)

1. (UK, obsolete, slang) A sixpence.
   • The price of a case (five shillings piece bad) from the smasher is about one shilling; an alderman (two and sixpence) about sixpence; a peg (shilling) about threepence; a downer or sprat (sixpence) about twopence.1859, Snowden's magistrates assistant, page 90

See all 9 meanings of downer