downstriking

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
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
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
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
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

See all 18 meanings of downstrike