different between downward vs bottom

downward

English

Etymology

down +? -ward

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA(key): /?da?nw?d/
  • (UK) IPA(key): /?da?nw?d/

Adverb

downward (comparative more downward, superlative most downward)

  1. Toward a lower level, whether in physical space, in a hierarchy, or in amount or value.
    His position in society moved ever downward.
    The natural disasters put downward pressure on the creditworthiness of the nation’s insurance groups.
    • c. 1590s, Michael Drayton, “The Ninth Eglog” in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall, London: N.L. and I. Flasket (no date), published by the Spenser Society, 1891, p. 94,[1]
      Whose presence, as she went along,
      The prety flowers did greet,
      As though their heads they downward bent
      With homage to her feete.
    • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act III, Scene 7,[2]
      [] a ring the county wears,
      That downward hath succeeded in his house
      From son to son, some four or five descents
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, p. 71,[3]
      [] their Sight was so directed downward, that they did not readily see Objects that were above them []
    • 1878, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, Book I, Chapter 4,[4]
      Down, downward they went, and yet further down—their descent at each step seeming to outmeasure their advance.
  2. At a lower level.
    • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, London, Book I, lines 462-463,[5]
      Dagon his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man
      And downward Fish []
  3. southward

Synonyms

  • down, downwards

Antonyms

  • up, upwards

Translations

Adjective

downward (comparative more downward, superlative most downward)

  1. Moving, sloping or oriented downward.
    He spoke with a downward glance.
    • 1593, William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis,[7]
      But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,
      Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
      Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
    • 1728, James Thomson, Spring. A Poem, London: A. Millar, p. 12,[8]
      [] in the Western Sky, the downward Sun
      Looks out illustrious from amid the Flush
      Of broken Clouds []
    • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 28,[9]
      Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction []
    • 1952, Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, Mineola, New York: Dover, 2015, Chapter 7, p. 73,[10]
      [] Therese saw a downward slant of sadness in her mouth now, a sadness not of wisdom but of defeat.
  2. Located at a lower level.
    • 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest, London: Bernard Lintott, p. 9,[11]
      In her chast Current oft the Goddess laves,
      And with Celestial Tears augments the Waves.
      Oft in her Glass the musing Shepherd spies
      The headlong Mountains and the downward Skies,
      The watry Landskip of the pendant Woods,
      And absent Trees that tremble in the Floods;
    • 1793, Thomas Taylor (translator), The Phædo in The Cratylus, Phædo, Parmenides and Timæus of Plato, London: Benjamin and John White, p. 235,[12]
      [] often revolving itself under the earth, [the river] flows into the more downward parts of Tartarus.

Translations

Anagrams

  • downdraw, draw down, drawdown

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bottom

English

Alternative forms

  • botton (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan (bottom, foundation; ground, abyss), from Proto-Germanic *butmaz, *budmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *b?ud?m?n (bottom). Cognate with Dutch bodem, German Boden, Icelandic botn, Danish bund; also Irish bonn (sole (of foot)), Ancient Greek ?????? (puthm?n, bottom of a cup or jar), Sanskrit ????? (budhna, bottom), Persian ??? (bon, bottom), Latin fundus (bottom) (whence fund, via French). The sense “posterior of a person” is from 1794; the “verb to reach the bottom of” is from 1808. bottom dollar (the last dollar one has) is from 1882.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /?b?t?m/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /?b?t?m/, [?b???m]

Noun

bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)

  1. The lowest part of anything.
    • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, chapter 19
      a great ship's kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out}}
    • No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms.
    1. A garment worn to cover the body below the torso.
      Coordinate term: top
    2. Spirits poured into a glass before adding soda water.
      a soda and a bottom of brandy
  2. (uncountable, Britain, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.
  3. The base; the fundamental part; basic aspect.
  4. (now chiefly US) Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.
    • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. II, ch. 71:
      The horses staled in a small brook that runs in a bottom, betwixt two hills.
    • 1812, Amos Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana
      the bottoms and the high grounds
  5. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
  6. The buttocks or anus.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:buttocks
  7. (often figuratively) The lowest part of a container.
  8. The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
  9. An abyss.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)
  10. (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
    • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:
      We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; [...]
  11. (nautical) Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
    • November 8, 1773, [first name not given] Bancroft, in Boston Post-Boy
      Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped.
  12. (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
  13. (BDSM) A submissive in sadomasochistic sexual activity.
  14. (gay slang) A man who prefers the receptive role in anal sex with men.
  15. (particle physics) A bottom quark.
    Hypernym: flavor
  16. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
    • the [silk]worms will fasten themselves, and make their bottoms, which in about fourteen days are finished.
  17. (obsolete) Power of endurance.
  18. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

Synonyms

  • (lowest part): base
  • (buttocks, British, euphemistic): sit upon, derriere, ????
  • (BDSM, gay): catcher

Antonyms

  • (lowest part): top
  • (BDSM, gay): top

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

  • ? French: bottom

Translations

Verb

bottom (third-person singular simple present bottoms, present participle bottoming, simple past and past participle bottomed)

  1. (transitive) To furnish (something) with a bottom. [from 16th c.]
    to bottom a chair
  2. (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.). [17th c.]
    • 1623, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, First Folio, III.2:
      As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.
  3. (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon. [from 17th c.]
    • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford 2009, p. 26:
      But an absurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law and policy.
    • those false and deceiving grounds upon which many bottom their eternal state
    • 2001, United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, p.59:
      Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked.
  4. (transitive, chiefly in passive) To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath. [from 18th c.]
    • 1989, B Mukherjee, Jasmine:
      My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks.
  5. (obsolete, intransitive) To be based or grounded. [17th–19th c.]
    • 'c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman
      Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms.
  6. (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action. [from 19th c.]
  7. (transitive) To reach the bottom of something.
  8. To fall to the lowest point. [from 19th c.]
  9. (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship. [from 20th c.]
  10. (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex. [from 20th c.]
    I've never bottomed in my life.

Derived terms

  • bottom out

Translations

Adjective

bottom (not comparable)

  1. The lowest or last place or position.
    Those files should go on the bottom shelf.

Translations

See also

  • bottommost

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English bottom.

Adjective

bottom (plural bottoms)

  1. (LGBT, slang) bottom (passive in role)

Synonyms

  • passif

Portuguese

Noun

bottom m (plural bottons)

  1. button (a badge worn on clothes)
    Synonym: botão

bottom From the web:

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