downright
Meanings
- Completely, wholly.
- Of acts or speech: directly and unambiguously; clearly, plainly.
- Straight down; perpendicularly.
- Immediately at that place and time; without delay; altogether, at once, then and there.
- Absolute, complete.
- Of a person or their behaviour: direct, plain, straightforward; also, of speech: direct and unambiguous; blunt, to the point.
- Coming straight down; directed vertically.
- Chiefly in downright money: in its most basic form; ordinary.
- A low grade of wool from the lower parts of the sides of a fleece.
- A vertical line; a perpendicular, a vertical.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
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; etc.”, adverb) (from Old English dūne (“down”), ultimately from dūn (“hill, mountain”): see above) + right. By surface analysis, down (adverb) + right (adjective). The adjective and noun are derived from the adverb. Noun sense 1 (“low grade of wool”) may be from the obsolete adjective sense 2.2 (“in its most basic form; ordinary”).