Word.ws English Dictionary

letting down

letting down is the present participle and gerund of let down.

Meaning of let down

Verb

let down (third-person singular simple present lets down, present participle letting down, simple past and past participle let down)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To disappoint; to betray or fail somebody.
    • I promised him I would meet him there, and I will not let him down.
    Antonyms:
    come through, keep faith, abide by, hold on, go to the wall for someone, stand by, stick by, stick with
  2. (transitive) To lengthen by undoing and resewing a hem.
    Antonyms:
    take in
  3. (intransitive) To reduce one's level of effort.
  4. To soften in tempering.
    • to let down tools or cutlery
  5. To thin; to reduce the thickness or viscosity of.
    • let the sauce down with a little pasta water if it starts to become too thick; if the soup is too thick, you can let it down with a little milk; let the sauce down with a dash of the pickling liquor; use some of the stock to let down the onion sauce
  6. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see let, down: especially, to allow to descend.
    • let down your hair
    Antonyms:
    put up

Questions about letting down

What is letting down the present participle and gerund of?
Letting down is the present participle and gerund of let down.

Words near letting down in the dictionary

  1. letting alone
  2. letting be
  3. letting blood
  4. letting bygones be bygones
  5. letting crazy stick its dick in you
  6. letting down
  7. letting drive
  8. letting fluffy off the chain
  9. letting fly
  10. letting go
  11. letting go and letting God

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: letting down (page history and authors); let down (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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