Word.ws English Dictionary

downy

/ˈdaʊni/

downy adjective: having down, covered with a soft fuzzy coating as of small feathers or hair.

Adjective

downy (comparative downier, superlative downiest)

  1. Having down, covered with a soft fuzzy coating as of small feathers or hair.
    • The chick's downy coat of feathers formed almost immediately to keep it warm.
  2. (dated, slang) Sharp-witted, perceptive.
    • The right hon. Gentleman has much more claim to the adjective downy than I have, but he really cannot catch me with that one.1947, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, Speech in UK House of Commons, 10th November 1947
    • I’m not clever, p’raps: but I am rather downy; and partial friends say I know what’s o’clock tolerably well.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 10, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  3. (Norfolk, UK) Low-spirited; down in the mouth.

Noun

downy (plural downies)

  1. A blanket filled with down; a duvet.
    • Went to bed with 2 downies on the bed, but the heat finally kicked in and ended with one cover and my feet sticking out.2013, Dorothy M. Jensen, The Little Girl From 311 Travis Street, page 246
  2. (dated, slang) A bed.
    • to do the downy (i.e. lie in bed)
    • "Lord love you, Mr. Scott, I've a deal to do before I get to my downy; and I don't like those doctored tipples. Good night, Mr. Scott; I wishes you good night, sir;" and making another slight reference to his hat, which had not been removed from his head during the whole interview, Mr. Manylodes...1857, Anthony Trollope, The Three Clerks, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, page 181

downy meaning in Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

downy in Urdu

downy
کومل kōmal

downy in Telugu

downy, tender
నూగు nūgu

downy in Malayalam

soft, velvety, smooth
തൂവൽപോലുള്ള, മൃദുവായ, മിനുസമുള്ള, മാർദ്ദവമുള്ള, പതുപതുത്ത, മിനുസമായ

Examples of downy in a sentence

  • The downy woodpecker can be found in the same environments as the hairy woodpecker.
  • I've been feeding several downy ’peckers from my short-perched tubes for years.
  • An erect slender herb, sparingly subfastigiately branched; branches towards their tips finely downy with hooked hairs.

All 15 example sentences with downy

Forms of downy

Adjective
comparativedownier
superlativedowniest
Noun
pluraldownies

Origin of downy

From down + -y.

Words formed from downy

Phrases with downy

Words that rhyme with downy

Questions about downy

What does downy mean?
Downy means having down, covered with a soft fuzzy coating as of small feathers or hair.
What is downy in Urdu?
Downy in Urdu is کومل (kōmal). See Downy meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is downy?
Downy can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce downy?
Downy is pronounced /ˈdaʊni/.

Words near downy in the dictionary

  1. downwellings
  2. downwells
  3. downwind
  4. downwinder
  5. downwinders
  6. downy
  7. downy birch
  8. downy birches
  9. downy mildew
  10. downy mildews
  11. downy oak

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: downy (page history and authors); کومل (Urdu) (page history and authors); నూగు (Telugu) (page history and authors); downy (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-downy.wav.

Cite this entry: “downy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/downy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.