Word.ws English Dictionary

lower-down

US/ˌloʊ.wɚ ˈdaʊn/

lower-down noun: someone with lesser superiority or authority in an organization.

Noun

lower-down (plural lower-downs)

  1. Someone with lesser superiority or authority in an organization.
    • Humans distinguish between we-groups and they-groups, such as relatives versus strangers and higher-ups versus lower-downs, thereby creating crucial preconditions for favouring their own groups while discriminating against others.2020, Evert Van de Vliert, “The global ecology of differentiation between us and them”, in Nature Human Behavior, volume 4, number 3, pages 270-278
    Synonyms:
    subordinate
    Antonyms:
    higher-up, superior

Synonyms of lower-down

Antonyms

Forms of lower-down

plurallower-downs

Origin of lower-down

From lower + down. Modeled after higher-up.

Questions about lower-down

What does lower-down mean?
Lower-down means someone with lesser superiority or authority in an organization.
What part of speech is lower-down?
Lower-down is a noun.
How do you pronounce lower-down?
Lower-down is pronounced /ˌloʊ.wɚ ˈdaʊn/ (US).
What is the plural of lower-down?
The plural of lower-down is lower-downs.

Words near lower-down in the dictionary

  1. lower-casing
  2. lower-class
  3. lower-classness
  4. lower-cost
  5. lower-density
  6. lower-down
  7. lower-emission
  8. lower-end
  9. lower-fat
  10. lower-functioning
  11. lower-grade

Source and license

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