downward

adv

1. (not-comparable)Toward a lower level, whether in physical space, in a hierarchy, or in amount or value.

   “His position in society moved ever downward.”

   “The natural disasters put downward pressure on the creditworthiness of the nation’s insurance groups.”

   “[A] ring the county wears, / That downward hath succeeded in his house / From son to son, some four or five descents”

   “They call her Daffadill: / Whoſe preſence as ſhe went along, / The prety flowers did greet, / As though their heads they downward bent, / With homage to her feete.”

   “Novv you muſt bee ſure […] to carry the point or top of the Rod dovvnevvard; by vvhich meanes the ſhadovv of your ſelfe, and Rod too vvill be the leaſt offenſive to the Fiſh, for the ſight of any ſhadovv amazes the fiſh, and ſpoiles your ſport, of vvhich you muſt take a great care.”

2. (not-comparable)At a lower level.

   “Dagon his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man / And downward Fish […]”

3. (not-comparable)Southward.

   “If we turn to the New World, we find that among the American Indians, from the Eskimo of Alaska downward to Brazil and still farther south, homosexual customs have been very frequently observed.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Moving, sloping or oriented down.

   “He spoke with a downward glance.”

   “But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar, Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave, Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;”

   “[…] in the Western Sky, the downward Sun Looks out illustrious from amid the Flush Of broken Clouds […]”

   “Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction […]”

   “[…] Therese saw a downward slant of sadness in her mouth now, a sadness not of wisdom but of defeat.”

2. (not-comparable)Located at a lower level.

   “In her chast Current oft the Goddess laves, And with Celestial Tears augments the Waves. Oft in her Glass the musing Shepherd spies The headlong Mountains and the downward Skies, The watry Landskip of the pendant Woods, And absent Trees that tremble in the Floods;”

   “1793, Thomas Taylor (translator), The Phædo in The Cratylus, Phædo, Parmenides and Timæus of Plato, London: Benjamin and John White, p. 235, […] often revolving itself under the earth, [the river] flows into the more downward parts of Tartarus.”