English

Verb

sit down ‎(third-person singular simple present sits down, present participle sitting down, simple past and past participle sat down)

1. (intransitive) To assume a sitting position from a standing position.

   Sit down! We have work to do.

2. (transitive or reflexive) To cause to be seated or in a sitting posture; to furnish a seat to.
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 6 Monk Samson:

     Coming home, therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrine of St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize and imprison me.

   • 1922, A. E. Housman, Astronomy, lines 3-4:

     Oh I will sit me down and weep / For bones in Africa.

3. (figuratively) To meet formally at a conference table.
   • 2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:

     Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

4. To assume a low or sunken position.

   The ball scooted off the fairway and sat down in the thick rough.

   As we all climbed aboard, the little boat sat down low in the water.

Synonyms

• (assume a sitting position): be seated, take a pew, take a seat

Derived terms

• sit down money

Translations

See also

• lie down
• set a spell
• set down (transitive)
• sit
• sit up
• stand up