Word.ws English Dictionary

up for the downstroke

up for the downstroke adjective: ready to get funky; ready to dance with abandon.

Adjective

up for the downstroke (not comparable)

  1. (slang) Ready to get funky; ready to dance with abandon.
    • The horn-fueled title track gave Parliament their first Top 10 appearance on the Billboard R&B charts, doing James Brown proud with its stuttering funk groove, its singalong chorus imploring us all to “Get up for the downstroke.”2013 November 14, Ed Masley, “10 best Parliament and Funkadelic albums”, in The Republic
    • George Clinton is still a touring machine at age 76, still getting up for the downstroke, still giving you more of what you're funking for, still tearing the roof off the sucker.2018 March 20, “The 40 Best Music Shows in Seattle This Week: March 19-25, 2018”, in The Stranger

Examples of up for the downstroke in a sentence

  • The second those iconic beats dropped, we knew it was time to “get up for the downstroke.”2018 July 24, Nikki Love, “George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic deliver a funky good time”, in Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder:
  • Time to get seriously up for the downstroke.2018 September 1, “The South London Soul Train Halloween Special with Afro Cluster (Live)”, in Resident Advisor:

Origin of up for the downstroke

From the album Up for the Down Stroke (1974) by Parliament and the eponymous song.

Questions about up for the downstroke

What does up for the downstroke mean?
Up for the downstroke means ready to get funky; ready to dance with abandon.
How do you use up for the downstroke in a sentence?
The second those iconic beats dropped, we knew it was time to “get up for the downstroke.”
What part of speech is up for the downstroke?
Up for the downstroke is an adjective.

Words near up for the downstroke in the dictionary

  1. up close and personal
  2. Up Exe
  3. up for
  4. up for grabs
  5. up for sale
  6. up for the downstroke
  7. up from
  8. up front
  9. up gaze
  10. up goes the donkey
  11. Up Helly Aa

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up for the downstroke (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-up for the downstroke.ogg.

Cite this entry: “up for the downstroke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/up_for_the_downstroke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.