Word.ws English Dictionary

staring down

staring down is the present participle and gerund of stare down.

Meaning of stare down

Verb

stare down (third-person singular simple present stares down, present participle staring down, simple past and past participle stared down)

  1. (transitive) To overcome or make uncomfortable by staring intently.
    • “Homer’s Triple Bypass” has the potential to be the most depressing episode in the history of The Simpsons, if not television as whole. It is, after all, about a 36-year-old husband and father staring down death and the prospect of leaving his wife a young widow and his small children fatherless.2012 June 17, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Homer’s Triple Bypass” (season 4, episode 11; originally aired 12/17/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club

Questions about staring down

What is staring down the present participle and gerund of?
Staring down is the present participle and gerund of stare down.

Words near staring down in the dictionary

  1. starin'
  2. staring
  3. staring contest
  4. staring contests
  5. staring daggers
  6. staring down
  7. staring into space
  8. staring like a stuck pig
  9. staring out
  10. staring someone in the face
  11. staring spell

Source and license

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