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May 22, 2024
This week’s theme
Words from music

This week’s words
pitch-perfect
fanfare
downbeat
boogie
fiddle-faddle

downbeat
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

downbeat

PRONUNCIATION:
(DAUN-beet)

MEANING:
noun:1. The downward stroke of a conductor indicating the first or an accented beat of a measure.
 2. The first beat of a measure.
adjective:1. Gloomy or pessimistic.
 2. Understated, muted, or restrained.

ETYMOLOGY:
From down, from Old English dun/dune, from adune (downward), from the phrase “of dune” (off the hill), from dun (hill) + beat, from Old English beatan. Earliest documented use: 1766.

NOTES:
There’s nothing pessimistic about the first beat of a measure, so why the metaphorical sense? The first beat of a measure is, in fact, usually accented. The metaphorical sense apparently arose from the association of “downbeat” with “beaten down”.

USAGE:
“My friend Josh was even more downbeat, concerned it would undo all of the progress I’d made over the last year.”
Lynne Raimondo; Dante’s Poison; Seventh Street Books; 2014.

See more usage examples of downbeat in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something. -Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (22 May 1859-1930)

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