English Dictionary

DOWNY (downier, downiest)

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

Irregular inflected forms: downier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation, downiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation

 Dictionary entry overview: What does downy mean? 

DOWNY (adjective)
  The adjective DOWNY has 2 senses:

1. like down or as soft as downplay

2. covered with fine soft hairs or downplay

  Familiarity information: DOWNY used as an adjective is rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


DOWNY (adjective)

 Declension: comparative and superlative 
Comparative: downier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Superlative: downiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Like down or as soft as down

Synonyms:

downlike; downy; flossy; fluffy

Similar:

soft (yielding readily to pressure or weight)

Derivation:

down (soft fine feathers)

downiness (a light softness)


Sense 2

Meaning:

Covered with fine soft hairs or down

Synonyms:

downy; puberulent; pubescent; sericeous

Context example:

downy milkweed seeds

Similar:

haired; hairy; hirsute (having or covered with hair)

Domain category:

biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)

Derivation:

down (fine soft dense hair (as the fine short hair of cattle or deer or the wool of sheep or the undercoat of certain dogs))

downiness (a light softness)


 Context examples 


Fine downy hair that covers the body of a human fetus beginning in the fifth month of gestation; it is usually shed by the ninth month of gestation.

(Lanugo, NCI Thesaurus)

It has an abundant shaggy outer coat with a soft downy undercoat.

(Cairn Terrier, NCI Thesaurus)

Oh, you're a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm another, ain't I?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I was suddenly, upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my right—which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and not a gentleman or half a gentleman's house to be seen excepting one—to be presumed the Parsonage—within a stone's throw of the said knoll and church.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"God cures and the physician takes the fee." (English proverb)

"Who stays under the tree, eats its fruits." (Albanian proverb)

"The man who wanted to milk the male goat failed." (Arabic proverb)

"Morning is smarter than evening." (Croatian proverb)



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