Word.ws English Dictionary

downpicking

downpicking noun: the technique of playing a stringed instrument with a plectrum using all downward strokes. Also the present participle and gerund of downpick.

Noun

downpicking (uncountable)

  1. The technique of playing a stringed instrument with a plectrum using all downward strokes.
    • You will know whether you want a tone ring, and if so, what kind, and whether or not you want a resonator (most people would rather do downpicking and two-finger picking on banjos without resonators, although this feeling is far from universal — my own all-round "working" banjo is a thirty-year-old...1968, Art Rosenbaum, Old-time Mountain Banjo, page 84
    • What I noticed was that Charlie did a lot of downpicking, like Eddie Durham, and he wasn't playing any modern chords.2009, The Ghosts of Harlem: Sessions with Jazz Legends

Also used as

downpicking is also the present participle and gerund of downpick.

Questions about downpicking

What does downpicking mean?
Downpicking means the technique of playing a stringed instrument with a plectrum using all downward strokes.
What part of speech is downpicking?
Downpicking is a noun.

Words near downpicking in the dictionary

  1. Downpatrick
  2. downpayment
  3. downpayments
  4. downpick
  5. downpicked
  6. downpicking
  7. downpicks
  8. downpipe
  9. downpipes
  10. downpitch
  11. downpitched

Source and license

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