English

Verb

go down ‎(third-person singular simple present goes down, present participle going down, simple past went down, past participle gone down)

1. (transitive) To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.

   You'll need to go down two floors to get to that office.

   1. (intransitive, of a heavenly body) To disappear below the horizon of a plane; to set.
      • 2010, Stefan Molyneux, Heroism :

        You can be heroic and start the process of truly saving the world before the Sun goes down tonight.

   2. (intransitive) To decrease; to change from a greater value to a lesser one.

      The unemployment rate has gone down significantly in recent months.

   3. (intransitive) To fall (down), fall to the floor.

      The boxer went down in the second round, after a blow to the chin.

2. (slang) To take place, happen.

   A big heist went down yesterday by the docks.

   1. (intransitive) To be received or accepted.

      The news didn't go down well with her parents.

   2. (intransitive) To be blamed for something; to be the scapegoat; to go to prison.

      Rodney's not here; after the shootout, he went down and won't be back for at least a year.

   3. (intransitive) To be recorded or remembered (as).

      Today will go down as a monumental failure.

      • 2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport:

        A stunning performance from the Republic of Ireland all but sealed progress to Euro 2012 as they crushed nine-man Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of the qualifying play-off tie in A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn. The scoreline did not flatter Ireland who's produced a composed, classy and determined showing that will go down as the highlight of the Giovanni Trapattioni era so far.

3. (idiomatic) To perform oral sex.

   He felt nervous about going down on his girlfriend for the first time.

4. (computing, engineering) To stop functioning, to go offline.

   Did the server just go down again? We'll have to reboot it.

Usage notes

As down may be used as a preposition or adverb in its own right, the combination go down may also occur in cases where go is used literally. For example, down the street means "away from the speaker along the street in question" regardless of whether go is present:

• She lives down the street.
• Go down the street to get to her house.

Idioms such as these are properly considered senses of down.

Derived terms

• go down like a lead balloon

Translations

Related terms

• go down on