Word.ws English Dictionary

downness

downness noun: the property of being a down quark.

Noun

downness (uncountable)

  1. (quantum mechanics) The property of being a down quark.
    • Each of the flavors has a corresponding property, so that the down quark carries "downness," although upness and downness are rarely mentioned,2006, Donald Gary Swanson, Quantum Mechanics: Foundations and Applications, page 287
    • The down and antidown quarks on the left have a total downness of zero, which is preserved on the right.2011, Kenneth W. Ford, 101 Quantum Questions, page 162
  2. The quality or state of being physically down.
    • To some degree this feature determines the profiles themselves: upness in B and downness in A, but the downness of C, more than a downness of relaxation, is a downness of being held down.1986, Dwight Le Merton Bolinger, Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English, page 340
    • Walking down in the mornings, up in the afternoons, which, with the weight of the tomes, is the fundamental issue— downness, upness, when it should of course be upness, downness, the fall and the rise hardly ever to be spoken of at all, always the rise and fall of things, almost any sort of thing...1987, Kansas Quarterly - Volume 19, Issues 3-4, page 228
  3. Lowness of pitch or tone.
    • If children are taught to listen to certain definite sounds (whisles, birds, singing, etc.) they will soon observe something as to the "upness" and "downness" of tones;1914, Charles Alexander McMurry, Handbook of Practice for Teachers, page 133
    • The upness and downness of vowel sounds affect us physically in different ways .1974, John Frederick Nims, Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, page 180
  4. The quality or state of being low in a social hierarchy; lowliness.
    • The downs spend a lot of time taking the ups out to lunch and dinner to explain their downness.1996, Benjamin Bowser, Raymond G. Hunt, Impacts of Racism on White Americans, page 192
    • On the other hand, if a child of 2 were to say 'down' when he meant to say 'up', one could argue that the concept of 'upness' would not necessarily activate the concept of 'downness' when the child was constructing a proposition regarding an activity which involved only 'upness' (for example, 'Pick...2004, Jeri J. Jaeger, Kids' Slips, page 313
  5. The state of having a low or disparaging mood; a feeling of depression, helplessness, or dislike.
    • […] the transition from the emotion of grief to the emotion of depression seems to be made by way of a mood that we might call depression —a generalized downness in one's view of things that then attaches itself, more or less non-rationally, to "objects" like the new president and my deficit of...2003, Robert C. Roberts, Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology, page 242
    • When we are overwhelmed with the pain of downness, this is probably the time that the help of a strong, nurturing ally can help lift us up.2009, Jeanne Holland Crowther, The Other Side of Fear, page 220

Examples of downness in a sentence

  • Whether he had any word for “down” is irrelevant, for the immediate sensation of “downness” in the body sufficed, and was already familiar.2010, Maureen Lockhart, The Subtle Energy Body:
  • I then split the columns into squares to mimic the up and downness of pitch, matching each square to its appropriate color, surrounded by the corresponding harmonic color.2011, Shelby Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia A. Enciso, Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature:
  • Within the malls or neocanons of academia, the art scene, and activism, another mall exists—that of downness.2005, Melinda L. De Jesus, Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory, page 145:
  • Most usually it appears to have developed out of a response to the attempts of others to force the client into a position of downness.2013, John Birtchnell, Relating in Psychotherapy: The Application of a New Theory, page 143:

Origin of downness

From down + -ness.

Questions about downness

What does downness mean?
Downness means the property of being a down quark.
How do you use downness in a sentence?
Whether he had any word for “down” is irrelevant, for the immediate sensation of “downness” in the body sufficed, and was already familiar.
What part of speech is downness?
Downness is a noun.

Words near downness in the dictionary

  1. downmost
  2. downmouth
  3. downmouthed
  4. downmouthing
  5. downmouths
  6. downness
  7. downpatch
  8. downpatched
  9. downpatches
  10. downpatching
  11. Downpatrick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: downness (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: “downness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/downness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.