Word.ws English Dictionary

ups and downs

ups and downs noun: periods of positive and negative events, moods, or interactions; highs and lows.

Noun

ups and downs pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Periods of positive and negative events, moods, or interactions; highs and lows.
    • Heidi and Mike had their ups and downs, but they stayed married for more than 60 years.
    • So it is the world wags: that honest men and knaves alike are always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we are perpetually changing tenants in Our Street.1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Our Street, page 34
  2. (plural, plural-only) Undulations.
    • [...] speed barely exceeded 30 m.p.h. until well beyond Kelty and from the front end the ups-and-downs of the track occasioned by pitfalls are very noticeable.1960 August, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Trains Illustrated, page 463

ups and downs meaning in Bengali, Telugu and Persian

ups and downs in Bengali

ইতিবাচক এবং নেতিবাচক ঘটনা, মেজাজ, মিথস্ক্রিয়ার পর্যায়

ups and downs in Telugu

idiomatic
ఆటుపోట్లు āṭupōṭlu

ups and downs in Persian

idiomatic
پستی و بلندی pasti-o-bolandi, فراز و فرود farâz-o-forud, فراز و نشیب farâz-o-našib

Synonyms of ups and downs

Questions about ups and downs

What does ups and downs mean?
Ups and downs means periods of positive and negative events, moods, or interactions; highs and lows.
What is ups and downs in Bengali?
Ups and downs in Bengali is ইতিবাচক এবং নেতিবাচক ঘটনা, মেজাজ, মিথস্ক্রিয়ার পর্যায়. See Ups and downs meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is ups and downs?
Ups and downs is a noun.

Words near ups and downs in the dictionary

  1. uprushes
  2. uprushing
  3. uprushings
  4. ups
  5. ups and disappears
  6. ups and downs
  7. ups one's game
  8. ups stick
  9. ups sticks
  10. ups the ante
  11. ups the game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ups and downs (page history and authors); ups and downs (Bengali Wiktionary) (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-ups and downs.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ups and downs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ups_and_downs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.