downright

CEFRB2

/ˈdaʊnɹaɪt/

adverb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adverb

    Completely or in a very obvious way.

  2. 02

    adverb

    Extra detail

    Of acts or speech: directly and unambiguously; clearly, plainly.

Examples

  • But that's... downright disgusting. Why isn't anybody doing something against that?

  • The girl was not downright homely.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adverb

Extra meanings

  1. Straight down; perpendicularly.

  2. Completely, wholly.

  3. Immediately at that place and time; without delay; altogether, at once, then and there.

More examples

In context

  • He wasn’t just cool to me, he was downright rude.

  • That movie's downright dirty.

  • VVe vvere deſcried, theyle mock vs novv dounright.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The accusation was a blank fabrication of the truth.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adverb

The adverb is derived from Middle English dounright, dounriȝt (“right down, straight down; face down; vertically; used for emphasis: outright, downright”), and then either: * possibly an aphetic form of adounright (“straight down; directly, immediately (?)”), from adoun (“downward”, adverb) (from Old English adūn, adūne (“down, downward”, adverb), ultimately from dūn (“hill, mountain”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūnā, *dūnu (“hill; sand dune”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“haze, mist; smoke”)) + right (“direct; straight; etc.”, adjective) (from Old English riht (“straight; etc.”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to straighten”)); or * from doun (“down, downward...