Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use downside in a sentence

31 example sentences · noun

Downside means a disadvantageous aspect of something that is normally advantageous. Example: “The downside of obtaining a higher rank is that far more work is expected.”

Examples of downside by meaning

nounA disadvantageous aspect of something that is normally advantageous.

  • The downside of obtaining a higher rank is that far more work is expected.
  • Hazardous and nuclear waste came to represent the downside of industrial prosperity.1998, Hal Rothman, Gerald W. Nash, Richard W. Etulain, The Greening of a Nation?:, page 136
  • The downside of being snaggle-toothed is that you whistle through them and people can't understand what you're talking about.2000, Zvonimir Balog, Nice Manners, Or, How Can I Avoid Growing Up to be a Twit, page 200

nounA downward tendency, especially in the price of shares etc.

  • The strategy is used both to increase the return on the underlying stock and to provide a limited amount of downside protection.1987, Information Circular
  • I could go all the way back to 1982 and I'm sure the effects of the expiration will be even more exacerbated on the downside of the spread.1994, The Review of Futures Markets - Volume 13, Issues 1-2, page 112
  • In Table 3, the options are shown for the same client who will accept a one in ten chance of breaching the downside of -3% in any one year.2002, The Professional Investor, page 17

nounThe side of something that is at the bottom, or that is intended to face downward.

  • The buildings on the downside of the station were demolished and new premises of modern design constructed on the new platform.1962, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological, page 144
  • Moreover, the flow chugging was observed at the downside of the plate.2003, Proceedings of the 2003 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, page 223

More sentences with downside

  • The downside of this cost-saving strategy was that the train service could only be covered by goodwill.2022 November 16, Graham Eccles, “The Rest Day Working saga...”, in RAIL, number 970, page 32. From the entry spat
  • The only downside to this is that you can’t play footsie.2010, Thierry Soufflard, The best places to kiss in Paris, Parigramme, →ISBN, page 79. From the entry footsie
  • There's no downside to providing reasonable cross links, and several reasons for providing them.2006 May 23, Harold Davis, Search Engine Optimization, O’Reilly Media, Inc., →ISBN, page 33. From the entry cross-link
  • Every situation has an upside and downside, and the bigger the stick, the bigger the ends.2005, Michael Ray, The Highest Goal: the Secret That Sustains You in Every Moment, →ISBN, page 82. From the entry every stick has two ends
  • The downside is that as they say, on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.2001 March 23, Julia L. Wilkinson, quoting Robert Seidman, “[An Awesome Tool; A New Way of Life] Benefits of USENET Bulletin Boards and…. From the entry equalizer
  • With the seniorness of the faculty also comes a downside, however.2000, National Forum of Educational Administration and Supervision Journal. From the entry seniorness
  • He said, 'Then you can do anything you want to me upside, downside, roundside.1970, Changing homosexuality in the male. From the entry roundside
  • The downside of normalization is that it erects a defensive barrier between the real world and the perceived i.e. normalized world.2025 April 21, Charles Hugh Smith, What's "Normal" in a Hyper-Normalized World?. From the entry barrier
  • There would be no downside, only upsides.2023 June 23, Jonathan Freedland, “With even leavers regretting Brexit, there’s one path back to rejoining the EU”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry upside
  • Ambition and self-improvement are certainly not negatives, although one potential downside to being more self-conscious—especially for punk bands—is muted urgency.2017 January 20, Annie Zaleski, “AFI sounds refreshed and rejuvenated on its 10th album, AFI (The Blood Album)”, in The Onion AV Club…. From the entry self-improvement
  • It’s the downside of her extreme loyalty to Bush.2007 May 3, Marcus Mabry, “Why Condi Is Talking to the Enemy”, in Newsweek, retrieved 02 Jan 2014. From the entry ice queen
  • There is little downside to the drug deal – the losses involved are profits from potential future sales of patented drugs.2005, John English, Ramesh Chandra Thakur, Andrew Fenton Cooper, Reforming from the Top: A Leaders’ 20 Summit, page 36. From the entry drug deal
  • This is a downside to free trade that the folks who advocate a European retreat from manufacturing simply fail to engage with or acknowledge.2026 June 6, Noah Smith, “Why Europe should put up trade barriers against Chinese goods. There are benefits far beyond protectionism”, in…. From the entry deadweight loss
  • The downside of working with sketchy dudes on building sites and in greasy spoons was that they were sketchy, but they also knew shady things.2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 201. From the entry sketchy
  • The only downside was the lack of vegan puds, they did have an apricotty flapjacky thing but a 'real' cake would have ensured top marks!!2003 April 22, artichoke, “review of guesthouses/restaurants in UK”, in alt.food.vegan (Usenet), archived from the original on 12 Nov 2023. From the entry flapjacky
  • On the outside, stayin ' out On the inside, upside, downside roundside, lineside, squareside, noside She's gonna have it as many wayz as possible.1997, Elaine Barkin, E: an anthology : music texts & graphics (1975-1995), page 155. From the entry roundside
  • On the downside, they’ve created such indelible demons and Death match tournaments that Doomers of all ages have reported actual perception changes.1996, Faith Popcorn, Lys Marigold, Clicking: 16 Trends to Future Fit Your Life, Your Work, and Your Business, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 86. From the entry doomer
  • The only downside with them is that they smell foul — they all seem to have this coppery, cornflakey smell which absolutely reeks.”1994 June 11, Tracey Leigh Hunt, quotee, “Confessions of a lingerie model”, in Manchester Evening News, number 38,862, Manchester, page 9…. From the entry cornflakey
  • An unexpected downside was a new generation of trains where the principal aim was to 'pack them in', leading to a sharp slump in ambience and passenger comfort.2023 September 20, Nigel Harris, “Comment Special: And it's goodbye from me...”, in RAIL, number 992, page 3. From the entry ambience
  • A downside to being an HSTS transsexual is that quite often, the only frame of reference you have for what to means to be an HSTS is yourself.2018 May 1, Rod Fleming, “Body-type clustering in HSTS and AGP groups”, in Rod Fleming's World. From the entry HSTS
  • The only downside to using the quadball is the fact it appears spherical when it really is not, and is therefore visually misleading to some users.2017 July 21, Shyam Venugopal, “To Globe or to Quadball, that is the Question”, in The SOLIDWORKS Blog. From the entry quadball
  • A century later, BR demolished the downside main buildings, so the eastbound and central platforms were promptly listed - which has ensured their survival, albeit increasingly neglected in recent years.2021 February 15, Robin Leleux, “Awards honour the best restoration projects: The London Underground Operational Enhancement Award…. From the entry list
  • The downside, though no one seems terribly worried about it, is that with new programs springing up every year, a lot of costly nurturing of nontalent takes place as well.2009 April 19, Charles Mcgrath, “The Ponzi Workshop”, in New York Times. From the entry nontalent

Meaning of downside

  1. noun A disadvantageous aspect of something that is normally advantageous.
  2. noun A downward tendency, especially in the price of shares etc.
  3. noun The side of something that is at the bottom, or that is intended to face downward.

Full definition of downside

Questions about downside in a sentence

How do you use downside in a sentence?
Downside is used as a noun. For example: “The downside of obtaining a higher rank is that far more work is expected.”
What is a short sentence with downside?
“There would be no downside, only upsides.”
What does downside mean?
Downside means a disadvantageous aspect of something that is normally advantageous.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: downside (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use downside in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/downside. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.