Word.ws English Dictionary

setting down

setting down is the present participle and gerund of set down.

Meaning of set down

Verb

set down (third-person singular simple present sets down, present participle setting down, simple past and past participle set down)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To write.
    • I set down this account so others may benefit from my experience.
  2. (transitive) To fix; to establish; to ordain.
    • This law we may name eternal, being that order which God […] hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by.[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)
  3. (UK, especially, transitive) To place, especially on the ground or a surface; to cease carrying; to deposit; to allow passengers to alight.
    • They rowed about a League; and then ſet me down on a Strand.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Sets out as Captain of a Ship. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin]...
    Synonyms:
    drop off
  4. (ambitransitive) To land.
    • The bush pilot set down on a sandbar.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To humiliate.
    • “I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin de Paris,’ in which there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell, who had seduced a working girl, who at the end———”1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter XIV, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part II, pages 239–240
  6. (transitive) To regard (someone) in a particular way; to put down as.
    • I set him down as an idiot.

Questions about setting down

What is setting down the present participle and gerund of?
Setting down is the present participle and gerund of set down.

Words near setting down in the dictionary

  1. setting by the ears
  2. setting coat
  3. setting coats
  4. setting dog
  5. setting dogs
  6. setting down
  7. setting eyes on
  8. setting fair
  9. setting fire by
  10. setting fire in
  11. setting fire into

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: setting down (page history and authors); set 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: “setting down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/setting_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.