Word.ws English Dictionary

live down to

live down to verb: to fulfill low or bad expectations.

Verb

live down to (third-person singular simple present lives down to, present participle living down to, simple past and past participle lived down to)

  1. (transitive) To fulfill low or bad expectations.
    • She lived down to her reputation as an awful person.

Forms of live down to

third-person singular presentlives down to
present participleliving down to
past participlelived down to
pastlived down to

Origin of live down to

Opposite version of live up to.

Questions about live down to

What does live down to mean?
Live down to means to fulfill low or bad expectations.
What part of speech is live down to?
Live down to is a verb.
What is the past tense of live down to?
The past tense of live down to is lived down to.

Words near live down to in the dictionary

  1. live conductor
  2. live conductors
  3. live dangerously
  4. live dough
  5. live down
  6. live down to
  7. live drop
  8. live drops
  9. live end dead end
  10. live fast, die young
  11. live feed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: live down to (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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