different between downcast vs solitary

English

Etymology

From Middle English *doun-casten, *adoun-casten (inferred from Middle English adoun-casting (“downcasting”), adoun-cast (“overthrow, destruction”)), modelled similarly to other constructions in Middle English (namely, Middle English adoun-throwen (“to throw down”), adoun-werpen (“to throw down”)), equivalent to down- +? cast.

Pronunciation

• (adjective, noun)
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /?da?nkæst/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?da?nk??st/
• (verb)
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /da?n?kæst/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /da?n?k??st/

Adjective

downcast (comparative more downcast, superlative most downcast)

1. (of eyes) Looking downwards.
   • 1717, John Dryden, Canace to Macareus

     'Tis love, said she; and then my downcast eyes, / And guilty dumbness, witness'd my surprise.

2. (of a person) Feeling despondent.

Translations

Noun

downcast (plural downcasts)

1. (computing) A cast from supertype to subtype.
2. (obsolete) A melancholy look.
   • 1619, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy

     That downcast of thine eye.

3. (mining) A ventilating shaft down which the air passes in circulating through a mine.

Verb

downcast (third-person singular simple present downcasts, present participle downcasting, simple past and past participle downcast or downcasted)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To cast or throw down; to turn downward.
2. (transitive, Scotland) To taunt; to reproach; to upbraid.
3. (transitive, computing) To cast from supertype to subtype.

   Antonym: upcast

Anagrams

• cast down

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?l?t??i/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?l?t?i/

Etymology 1

From Middle English [Term?], borrowed from Latin s?lit?rius.

Noun

solitary (countable and uncountable, plural solitaries)

1. (countable) One who lives alone, or in solitude; an anchoret, hermit or recluse.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 24]:

     He brooded and intrigued fantastically. He was becoming one of the big-time solitaries. And he wasn't meant to be a solitary. He was meant to be in active life, a social creature.

2. (uncountable) Solitary confinement.

   The prisoners who started the riot were moved to solitary.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:recluse

Translations

Adjective

solitary (not comparable)

1. Living or being by oneself; alone; having no companion present
2. Performed, passed, or endured alone

3. Not much visited or frequented; remote from society

4. Not inhabited or occupied; without signs of inhabitants or occupation; desolate; deserted
   • 1769, Bible (King James Version), Lamentations 1.1

     How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
5. gloomy; dismal, because of not being inhabited.
6. Single; individual; sole.
7. (botany) Not associated with others of the same kind.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

solitary

1. (archaic) The Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), an extinct flightless bird.

Anagrams

• royalist