Word.ws English Dictionary

downstrike

downstrike noun: a bolt of lightning that touches ground.

Noun

downstrike (plural downstrikes)

  1. A bolt of lightning that touches ground.
    • Seventeen hundred downstrikes of lightning later, destruction reigns over southwest Oregon.1994, David A. Perry, Forest Ecosystems, →ISBN, page 105
    • Lightning downstrikes became visible as it crossed Beekman Ridge south of Butte Falls.2014, Lloyd Holm, A Mountain of Many Names, →ISBN
  2. A (usually unintended) branch of current that arcs downward to ground.
    • Besides forming new cores, arcs may also form branches, and "downstrikes" are liable to be particularly troublesome.1959, Electrical Times - Volume 135, page 355
    • When a downstrike is established, the longer arc in parallel dies away rapidly and the process appears on oscillograms as a sudden reduction in arc voltage.1959, Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
  3. A blow by a hand or weapon that occurs with a downward striking motion.
    • Attacker executes a downstrike. Defender performs a two-hand catch, blocks, rotates through and performs an elbow-break with accompanying shoulder dislocation.1977, Michael D. Echanis, Knife Self-Defense for Combat, →ISBN, page 34
    • Its blades gleam with stolen light; the long sword slips up to Jodan to block their downstrike.2013, Ian McDonald -, King of Morning, Queen of Day, →ISBN
  4. A downward plucking motion on a stringed instrument.
    • How the guitarist chooses to create the differences between the accented and unaccented notes has usually been left up to the player, although it is usual for players to use a downstrike (apoyando) for an accented tone and an upstroke (tirando) for an unaccented tone.1985, John Schneider, The Contemporary Guitar, →ISBN, page 117
  5. A downstroke; a downward movement that terminates in striking something.
    • It is sort of like paying a carpenter for the downstrike of his hammer and saying the upstroke is on his on time.1965, United States Congress Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Hearings, page 185
    • On the subject of environments, our anatomically contoured houndstooth design provides exceptional traction on all terrains and in all weather conditions. What's more, the studs have a unique flex action: they automatically release any turf they may have picked up on downstrike.1982 -, Women's Sports - Volume 4, Issues 7-12, page 64
  6. A type of manual typewriter that causes the letters to print on the downstroke of the keys and retract as the key rises.
    • These machines had straight-line keyboards and a semicircular downstrike typebasket that made for easy visibility by the typist.1985, Frank T. Masi, The Typewriter Legend, page 67
    • Oak tables displayed platoons of typewriters: downstrike typewriters, upstrike typewriters, vintage World War I typewriters, turn-of-thecentury^([sic]) typewriters—a 1901 Armstrong, a Densmore 1, a brass 1881 Hamilton Automatic, even an 1877 Sholes & Glidden in its case --each perfect in its kind...2011, Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector, →ISBN, page 25
  7. A variety of various devices that operates primarily by a downward striking action.
    • My invention relates to pianofortes of the general character embodied in my United States Letters Patent No. 2,377,582, issued June 5, 1945, and wherein is disclosed and claimed a horizontal, downstrike hammer action particularly adapted, although not necessarily, for use in a lightweight, portable...1952, SC Shill, Piano action: US Patent 2,620,700
    • Sizes now available in vertical downstrike balers are: 72 inches, 60 inches and 36 inches.1974, Paper Board Packaging - Volume 59, Issues 7-12, page 95
  8. A line that is drawn with a downward stroke.
    • I have marked the accented syllable by the Downstrike, leaving the unaccented ones to the Upstrike1911 Jan-Mar, OG Sonneck, “" Caractacus" Not Arne's Caractacus”, in Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, volume 12, number 2
    • These figures are rendered as usual in Arabic letters and, as is well known, these are especially apt to confound the figures for 10 and 50 by a wrong (or lacking) puctuation^([sic])...and those for 3 and 8 (8 being written as ح and 3 by the same letter but with an incomplete downstrike م).1954, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Analecta Orientalia: posthumous writings and selected minor works

Verb

downstrike (third-person singular simple present downstrikes, present participle downstriking, simple past downstruck, past participle downstricken)

  1. To strike down; to knock down, kill, or cripple.
    • Nearly twenty years have elapsed since my friend was downstruck by his attack.1862, Half-year abstract of medical sciences - Volume 35, page 106
    • God does not downstrike me, a god ?1872, Herbert Randolph, So far [poems]., page 45
  2. To dismay, reject, demote, or render lowly.
    • Did you imagine us bigguns your servants, mebbe, or some such downstruck types?' 'Nobody were downstruck there. They were all with telling me what to do.2010, Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels, →ISBN, page 108
    • I tried to animate myself to behave a little more social, turning in circles a couple of times, making a slinky stepping pattern, and generally quickening my behavior in order to appear more alert and excited. I was not picked. I was downstruck. I felt the world had collapsed for me!2011, Jan Gero, Me on Me, →ISBN
  3. To arc to ground in a downstrike.
    • While a number of successful interruptions were made with this chute, it exhibited a proneness to "downstrike." The arc would run down one of the baffles onto one of the arcing contacts and short- circuit a portion of the metallic baffle stack.1962 -, Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, page 204
  4. To strike from above.
    • This was a downstriking hammer which hit the strings at a point where a silk band revolved against them, activated by a treadle.1982, David Wainwright, Broadwood, by appointment: a history, page 55
    • The wood in the Luberon looked back at him, the shafts of downstriking sunlight, the tiny scrap of fluttering light.2010, Diane Duane, Dark Mirror, →ISBN
  5. To move downward in a striking motion.
    • Parsival bounced upright and as the fellow reined close and chopped a swordstroke at his head the young knight, forgetting his own weapon in his rage, caught the downstriking arm with both hands and heaved the shocked man up out of his seat, across his own horse's neck, and spinning down the hill...1984, Richard Monaco, Parsival, Or a Knight's Tale, →ISBN, page 98
    • For example, a short card requiring minimum carding of short fibres may be designed to take fibres from the feed rollers using a downstriking licker straight to the cylinder.2006, S J Russell, Handbook of Nonwovens, →ISBN, page 41
  6. To go in a downward direction.
    • Those which are full of spindly, ingrowing wood we will thin rigorously, working with one of the nursery models before our mind's eye, and taking care that when our task is done, not a single ingrowing or downstriking shoot is left on the tree.1917, Walter Page Wright, Food, Fruit & Flowers, page 202
    • A parent-child dialogue is a downstriking dialogue and a child-parent dialogue is an upstriking dialogue.1976, Robert E. Longacre, An Anatomy of Speech Notions, page 195
  7. To point (finish a joint) by pressing mortar in at the bottom.
    • There was no trace of plaster inside the stair tower in the Barns: most of the interior was in brick, and the mortar pointing was downstruck and usually scored.2003, Essex Archaeology and History
    • A struck joint is made by running the trowel along the joint before the mortar is hard, either pressing in at the top: upstruck (or weathered), which exposes the mortar to the weather, or pressing in at the bottom: downstruck (or struck).2012, Sarah Gunn, Stone House Construction, →ISBN, page 112
  8. To play a stringed instrument with a downward plucking motion.
    • Armstrong doesn't use the story-within-a-story motif; his version begins with a New Orleans funeral jazz slow shuffle, picking up the tempo at 0.08, led by Armstrong's trumpet, trailed by the unmistakably wildly wandering New Orleans clarinet, skeletal barrelhouse piano, downstruck banjo and the...2010, Peter Mills, Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison, →ISBN

Adjective

downstrike (comparative more downstrike, superlative most downstrike)

  1. downward or further down.
    • The Earlies Gap Biotite Gneiss may therefore indicate a downstrike lithologic change resulting from original variations of the protolith and from a more thorough.1959, Field Trip Guidebook, page 30
    • Pyroclastics along the southeast shore of Manitou Island appear to be the [downstrike] equivalents of Troutlet Lake pyroclastics.1976, Geoscience Report - Issues 141-144, page 20

Adverb

downstrike (comparative more downstrike, superlative most downstrike)

  1. In a downward direction
    • Amal supracrustals and other rocks were traced from the syncline core to the rest of Magnusson's (1960) 'Gothian' area and thence downstrike across the alleged Gothian-Pregothian boundary into the 'Pregothian' region.1981, Forhandlingar, page 46
    • The spring is downstrike from a fairly large area of low perennial stream density.1985, Pellissippi Parkway Extension, I-40-I-75 to TN-115

Examples of downstrike in a sentence

  • Cells often will hover and send forth dozens of downstrikes in a concentrated area, particularly in areas like the Valle Caldera.2016, Kai Huschke, 50 Hikes in Northern New Mexico (Explorer's 50 Hikes), →ISBN:
  • These "downstrikes" were recorded with an electromagnetic oscillograph and a high-speed camera, and now a good correlation exists between the two records.1962, Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, page 204:
  • There were two men left by the rail and Hob whirled to take them; his sword swung up and hovered an instant before the downstrike.2017, Douglas Nicholas, Three Queens in Erin: A Novel, →ISBN, page 22:
  • Pumping unit stops at midstroke, restart will be made in downstrike.1985, Transactions of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers:

Forms of downstrike

Noun
pluraldownstrikes
Verb
third-person singular presentdownstrikes
present participledownstriking
pastdownstruck
past participledownstricken
Adjective
comparativemore downstrike
superlativemost downstrike
Adverb
comparativemore downstrike
superlativemost downstrike

Origin of downstrike

From down + strike.

Questions about downstrike

What does downstrike mean?
Downstrike means a bolt of lightning that touches ground.
How do you use downstrike in a sentence?
Cells often will hover and send forth dozens of downstrikes in a concentrated area, particularly in areas like the Valle Caldera.
What part of speech is downstrike?
Downstrike can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb.
What is the plural of downstrike?
The plural of downstrike is downstrikes.

Words near downstrike in the dictionary

  1. downstreams
  2. downstreamward
  3. downstreamwards
  4. downstreet
  5. downstricken
  6. downstrike
  7. downstrikes
  8. downstriking
  9. downstroke
  10. downstrokes
  11. downstroy

Source and license

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