Downcast

Quick meaning: Downcast is an adjective meaning Of the eyes, a facial expression, etc.: looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty.

Meaning

Of the eyes, a facial expression, etc.: looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty.

More Meanings

1. Of a person or thing: cast or thrown to the ground.
2. Of a thing: directed downwards.
3. Of a person: feeling despondent or discouraged.
4. Of a person or thing: defeated, overthrown; also, destroyed, ruined.
5. An act, or the situation, of being cast or thrown to the ground.
6. (geology, obsolete) Synonym of downthrow (“a depression of the strata on one side of a fault; also, the degree of downward displacement in such a fault”).
7. (countable) An act of looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty; hence (uncountable, archaic), dejection, melancholy.

Example Sentences

Briefly then heere Dido, with downe caſt phiſnomie, parled.

'Tis Love, ſaid ſhe; and then my dovvn-caſt eyes, / And guilty dumbneſs, vvitneſs'd my ſurprize.

Suppreſs your ſigh, your dovvn-caſt eyelids raiſe, / VVhom preſent you revere, him abſent praiſe.

But Gordon's downcast mien did not change; and I had to admit myself, when supper-time came, that one might almost as hopelessly have sopped the Matterhorn as the loaf.

Word Forms

• downcasts
• downcasting
• downcasted

Synonyms for downcast

Depending on context, synonyms include sorrowful, atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, chapfallen.

Antonyms for downcast

Common opposites include upcast, upthrow.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include dejected, depressed, downhearted, low-spirited, dispirited, down.

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