Downcast

/ˈdaʊnkɑːst/ · adjective

Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

1. Of the eyes, a facial expression, etc.: looking downwards, usually as a sign of discouragement, sadness, etc., or sometimes modesty.
2. Of a person or thing: cast or thrown to the ground.
3. Of a thing: directed downwards.
4. Of a person: feeling despondent or discouraged.
5. Of a person or thing: defeated, overthrown; also, destroyed, ruined.
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.
8. An act, or the situation, of being cast or thrown to the ground.

Example Sentences

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

[A]s before Empire and Arts made vvay, / (For no leſſe Harbingers vvould ſerve then they) / So they might ſtill, and point us out the place / VVhere firſt the Church ſhould raiſe her dovvn-caſt face.

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

VVhile Thy abandon'd Tribes ſhall only knovv / A diff'rent Maſter, and a Change of VVoe: / VVith dovvn-caſt Eye-lids, and vvith Looks a-ghaſt, / Shall dread the Future, or bevvail the Paſt.

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

[T]hat dovvn-caſt Countenance vvhich betrays the Man, vvho, after a ſtrong Conflict betvveen Virtue and Vice, hath ſurrendered his Mind to the latter, and is diſcovered in his firſt Treachery; […]

And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; […]

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.

Synonyms for downcast

Antonyms for downcast

Related Words

Word Forms

• more downcast
• most downcast
• downcasts
• downcasting
• downcast
• downcasted

Usage Notes

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