downstairsadv.adj.n.

Brit.

/ˌdaʊnˈstɛːz/, U.S.

/ˌdaʊnˈstɛrz/ (In sense C. usually)Brit.

/ˈdaʊnstɛːz/, U.S.

/ˈdaʊnˌstɛrz/

Forms:

α. 1500s downstaires, 1600s downestaires, 1600s– downstairs.

β. 1600s downestayre, 1600s 1800s–1900s downstair.

Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: down prep., stair n.

Etymology: Partly (in α. forms) < down prep. + the plural of stair n.; partly (in β. forms) < down prep. + stair n. Compare upstairs adv. and n.In later use in sense B. 1b often in collocations with upstairs , after upstairs-downstairs at upstairs adj. 1c. With senses A. 2, C. 2 compare the following earlier instance of the adverb, reflecting the tradition that hell is reached by descending a flight of steps or stairs:1633 T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter (ii. 15) 935 Hell is downe staires; and if a man have descended a step or two, it is a miracle if he stop before he comes to the bottome.

A. adv.

1. Down the stairs; on or to a lower floor.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [adverb] > floor or storey

below1562

downstairs1598

below stairs1600

above stairs1606

upstairs1781

1598 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 ii. v. 101 His industrie is vp staires and down staires, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning.

1627 M. Drayton Moone-calfe in Battaile Agincourt 165 When vp-stayre one, downe-stayre another hies.

1693 W. Congreve Old Batchelour iv. iv. 43 Indeed, my Dear, I was but just coming down stair, when you knock'd at the door.

1707 G. Farquhar Beaux Stratagem iv. 41 Get my easie Chair down Stairs, put the Gentleman in it.

1791 A. Radcliffe Romance of Forest II. xii. 218 The hostess..locked it, and went down stairs.

1811 New Ann. Reg. 1810 Principal Occurr. 27/2 She came down stairs..to altercate with the Landlady about some three-pence or four-pence of a laundress's bill.

1889 St. Nicholas Apr. 449/2 Downstairs there was another fireplace, a round centre-table decorated with pictures, and a sofa.

1900 H. Lawson On Track 94 One day I went downstairs to the packing-room and saw a lot of phosphorus in jars of water.

1949 F. Towers Tea with Mr. Rochester 101 He couldn't..sleep, or come downstairs, or face strangers without hugging his downie.

1980 Guardian 12 Feb. 4/8 The staircase was gone, which was probably why the children were unable to get downstairs.

2017 K. Kwan Rich People Probl. iii. xiii. 296 Do you want to go downstairs and break the news to your aunties?

2. figurative. In hell; to hell.

ΚΠ

a1845 R. H. Barham Brothers of Birchington in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 3rd Ser. 259 Such affairs..are bruited about..‘down-stairs’ Where Old Nick has a register office.

1958 Fergus Falls (Minnesota) Daily Jrnl. 27 Aug. 9/5 Just then the phone rang. It was Satan calling from downstairs to challenge the heavenly hosts to a ball game.

1969 I. Opie & P. Opie Children's Games 20 They refer to him [sc. the devil] obliquely as ‘Old Harry’, ‘Old Nick’, ‘Old Splitfoot’,..‘the gentleman downstairs’, or use even more indirect terms.

1998 Guardian 21 Nov. d21/3 The Exorcist..satanic chiller, with Linda Blair as the applecheeked kid who's possessed by the Man Downstairs.

2011 Herald-Times (Bloomington, Indiana) 19 Nov. a9/2 Whatever the GOP's peddling, it's not Christianity. Next time one of them hears God's call, it may be for a one-way trip downstairs.

3. Boxing slang. In or to the belly or midriff.

ΚΠ

1900 Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) 25 July 3/2 Throw him over the ropes! Nail him downstairs! Punch him where he eats!

1937 D. Runyon in Collier's 7 Aug. 11/2 ‘Downstairs, Jonas,’ I say. ‘In the elly-bay, Jonas,’ I say. So Jonas hits Poltafuss a left hook in the stomach.

1953 Republican-Courier (Findlay, Ohio) 9 June 11/5 A punch downstairs on a man who's not in condition and the fight ends right there.

1997 Boxing News 19 Dec. 7/4 A right downstairs put the Newcastle man on one knee again, forcing the referee to call it off immediately.

2017 Irish Voice (N.Y.) 13 Dec. 46 McKenna's body work was key in the first round as he used the left hook downstairs to slow his opponent down.

4. euphemistic. In the genital area or the area of the anus or buttocks. Cf. down below adv. at down adv. Phrases 5a, down there adv. at down adv. Phrases 5b.

ΚΠ

1942 I. Skariätina Tamara vii. 127 It always makes me itch so nastily on my sitting down part. A kiss on my forehead and directly I want to scratch downstairs behind.

1963 T. I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 132 No taking off no clothes, no touching downstairs.

1999 FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 20/1 I was feeling a bit amorous, so I started tickling her downstairs.

2000 Guardian 16 Feb. 18/1 You all know what happens downstairs when that happens (loose as a goose I was, if you'll pardon my anatomicals).

2002 More! 3 Apr. 97/1 Girls who don't keep things trim downstairs. In the 70s it might have been OK to grow a rainforest, but no more.

2016 J. Buttress People's Gardener 273 Having a bit of trouble downstairs, boy, if you know what I mean. Bound to happen at my age.

B. adj. (chiefly attributive).

a. Belonging to or situated on a lower floor.In quot. 1702 in figurative use with reference to a deliverance to a lower state or position.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [adjective] > floor or storey

understairs1616

downstairs1702

two-pair1749

below stairs1772

three-pair1788

one-pair1795

upstairs1839

1702 Saul & Samuel iv. 48 We are Deliver'd then from Nothing, we have no Deliverance, but a Down-Stair-Deliverance (that is to say) we are deliver'd up to a greater Tyranny.

1848 Gardeners' Chron. 27 May 349/2 An opening..is cut through the floor into each bedroom, and an opening, covered by a slide, in the downstairs room.

1873 Belfast News-Let. 29 Sept. 1/1 When the down-stairs tenant left he took the house.

1930 Oxf. Ann. Girls 11/1 ‘That must be the dance-room,’ she told herself, staring at the brilliant light streaming through four of the downstairs windows.

1974 Guardian 3 Oct. 13/4 When my downstairs neighbour goes away she leaves me her key, so I can pop in and see that all is well.

2015 Time Out London 17 Mar. 36/1 The downstairs bathroom is a complete write-off.

b. Situated in the servants' quarters; of, relating to, or characteristic of this part of the household or its inhabitants; lower class, downmarket, unrefined. Cf. below stairs adj.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > the common people > socially inferior person > [adjective]

low-bred1599

dunghilled1600

ungenteel1633

underbred1650

half-bred1694

ingenteel1694

ungentlemanlike1719

lowlife1728

under-degreed1748

lower class1812

downstairs1819

low-class1836

wrong1859

(as) common as dirt (also muck)1877

plebbish1928

downscale1930

non-U1954

1819 Metropolis (ed. 2) I. 146 Does your Lordship kneel at the feet of down stairs Cinderella?

1824 M. R. Mitford Our Village I. 237 I have sometimes..feared that her down-stair life was less happy.

1868 Quiver 21 Mar. 432/1 ‘Ring the down-stairs bell,’ screamed nurse from the nursery.

1976 Southern Evening Echo (Southampton) 2 Nov. 11/6 So don't run away with the idea that theirs is a totally ‘upstairs’ world indulged by a regiment of ‘downstairs’ people.

1994 W. Safire In Love with Norma Loquendi 140 This Britishism [sc. ‘so to speak’]..was an aristocrat's apology for stooping to colorful downstairs language.

2009 A. Radford Victorian Sensation Fiction 83 This notion of the ‘downstairs class’ infiltrating the confines of the genteel family resonates through many reactions to the genre in its 1860s heyday.

2011 S. Pierson Brisket Bk. 177 Brisket may be more ‘Downstairs’ than ‘Upstairs’, but don't rule out something sparkling.

2. euphemistic. Relating to or belonging to the genital area or the area of the anus or buttocks.

ΚΠ

1950 M. Spillane Vengeance is Mine iii. 45 In the downstairs department they were shipshape from plenty of walking, but upstairs it was hard to tell whether they were coming or going unless they were wearing falsies. They were pretty to look at, but I wouldn't give any of them bed room.

1964 I. Shulman Harlow xix. 277 Making promises he never kept to send an especially autographed photo of Jean plus a genuine lock of her downstairs hair, Arthur saw the fat young man to the door.

2001 Heat 27 Oct. 16 And they left nothing to imagination—apart from the black boxes that were strategically placed over the couple's, er, downstairs areas, that is.

2016 Coventry Evening Tel. (Nexis) 9 Dec. 26 It's distressing when things go a little bit awry in the ‘downstairs department’, and often adding to that physical distress, is the embarrassment factor.

C. n.

1. The downstairs part of a building; spec. the servants' quarters. Also: those inhabiting or belonging to the downstairs part of a building.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [noun] > floor or storey > ground floor

first storeyc1384

first floor1549

ground floor1601

ground-story1657

terreno1740

rez-de-chaussée1802

street floor1813

street level1830

downstairs1841

ground-flat1865

1841 Minutes Proc. St. Albans Election Comm. 32 in Rep. Comm. (Parl. Papers VI.) IX, Was it up stairs or down stairs?—Down stairs... I told you you knew; being down stairs, what part of down stairs?

1865 F. B. Palliser Hist. Lace xi. 159 The ‘Connoisseur’ complains of ‘roast beef being banished from even “downstairs” because the powdered footmen will not touch it’.

1896 Westm. Gaz. 23 Apr. 2/3 The magistrate could not discriminate whether upstairs or down-stairs began [the fight].

a1903 M. C. H. Bird in Eng. Dial. Dict. (1903) at Plancher An upper floor with boarded floor, as opposed to the brick floor of downstairs.

1949 T. Williams Let. Nov. in Five O'Clock Angel (1991) 30 Grandfather has the whole downstairs to himself as the bellowing conversations in the morning between him and the maid make sleep impossible after her arrival.

2015 L. Hunt 13 Days of Midnight iv. 113 Downstairs is empty: no ghosts, only Ham, hiding in his crate in the laundry room.

†2. figurative. Hell. Obsolete. rare.In quot. 1878 with punning allusion to the proverb (the road to) hell is paved with good intentions at hell n. and int. Phrases 1b.

ΚΠ

1878 H. Smart Play or Pay vi. 125 The accredited down stairs is so utterly overstocked with that pavement [of good intentions] they are supposed to be consigning it back in large quantities.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

单词	downstairs
释义	downstairsadv.adj.n. Brit. /ˌdaʊnˈstɛːz/, U.S. /ˌdaʊnˈstɛrz/ (In sense C. usually)Brit. /ˈdaʊnstɛːz/, U.S. /ˈdaʊnˌstɛrz/ Forms: α. 1500s downstaires, 1600s downestaires, 1600s– downstairs. β. 1600s downestayre, 1600s 1800s–1900s downstair. Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: down prep., stair n. Etymology: Partly (in α. forms) < down prep. + the plural of stair n.; partly (in β. forms) < down prep. + stair n. Compare upstairs adv. and n.In later use in sense B. 1b often in collocations with upstairs , after upstairs-downstairs at upstairs adj. 1c. With senses A. 2, C. 2 compare the following earlier instance of the adverb, reflecting the tradition that hell is reached by descending a flight of steps or stairs:1633 T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter (ii. 15) 935 Hell is downe staires; and if a man have descended a step or two, it is a miracle if he stop before he comes to the bottome. A. adv. 1. Down the stairs; on or to a lower floor. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [adverb] > floor or storey below1562 downstairs1598 below stairs1600 above stairs1606 upstairs1781 1598 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 ii. v. 101 His industrie is vp staires and down staires, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. View more context for this quotation 1627 M. Drayton Moone-calfe in Battaile Agincourt 165 When vp-stayre one, downe-stayre another hies. 1693 W. Congreve Old Batchelour iv. iv. 43 Indeed, my Dear, I was but just coming down stair, when you knock'd at the door. 1707 G. Farquhar Beaux Stratagem iv. 41 Get my easie Chair down Stairs, put the Gentleman in it. 1791 A. Radcliffe Romance of Forest II. xii. 218 The hostess..locked it, and went down stairs. 1811 New Ann. Reg. 1810 Principal Occurr. 27/2 She came down stairs..to altercate with the Landlady about some three-pence or four-pence of a laundress's bill. 1889 St. Nicholas Apr. 449/2 Downstairs there was another fireplace, a round centre-table decorated with pictures, and a sofa. 1900 H. Lawson On Track 94 One day I went downstairs to the packing-room and saw a lot of phosphorus in jars of water. 1949 F. Towers Tea with Mr. Rochester 101 He couldn't..sleep, or come downstairs, or face strangers without hugging his downie. 1980 Guardian 12 Feb. 4/8 The staircase was gone, which was probably why the children were unable to get downstairs. 2017 K. Kwan Rich People Probl. iii. xiii. 296 Do you want to go downstairs and break the news to your aunties? 2. figurative. In hell; to hell. ΚΠ a1845 R. H. Barham Brothers of Birchington in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 3rd Ser. 259 Such affairs..are bruited about..‘down-stairs’ Where Old Nick has a register office. 1958 Fergus Falls (Minnesota) Daily Jrnl. 27 Aug. 9/5 Just then the phone rang. It was Satan calling from downstairs to challenge the heavenly hosts to a ball game. 1969 I. Opie & P. Opie Children's Games 20 They refer to him [sc. the devil] obliquely as ‘Old Harry’, ‘Old Nick’, ‘Old Splitfoot’,..‘the gentleman downstairs’, or use even more indirect terms. 1998 Guardian 21 Nov. d21/3 The Exorcist..satanic chiller, with Linda Blair as the applecheeked kid who's possessed by the Man Downstairs. 2011 Herald-Times (Bloomington, Indiana) 19 Nov. a9/2 Whatever the GOP's peddling, it's not Christianity. Next time one of them hears God's call, it may be for a one-way trip downstairs. 3. Boxing slang. In or to the belly or midriff. ΚΠ 1900 Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) 25 July 3/2 Throw him over the ropes! Nail him downstairs! Punch him where he eats! 1937 D. Runyon in Collier's 7 Aug. 11/2 ‘Downstairs, Jonas,’ I say. ‘In the elly-bay, Jonas,’ I say. So Jonas hits Poltafuss a left hook in the stomach. 1953 Republican-Courier (Findlay, Ohio) 9 June 11/5 A punch downstairs on a man who's not in condition and the fight ends right there. 1997 Boxing News 19 Dec. 7/4 A right downstairs put the Newcastle man on one knee again, forcing the referee to call it off immediately. 2017 Irish Voice (N.Y.) 13 Dec. 46 McKenna's body work was key in the first round as he used the left hook downstairs to slow his opponent down. 4. euphemistic. In the genital area or the area of the anus or buttocks. Cf. down below adv. at down adv. Phrases 5a, down there adv. at down adv. Phrases 5b. ΚΠ 1942 I. Skariätina Tamara vii. 127 It always makes me itch so nastily on my sitting down part. A kiss on my forehead and directly I want to scratch downstairs behind. 1963 T. I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 132 No taking off no clothes, no touching downstairs. 1999 FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 20/1 I was feeling a bit amorous, so I started tickling her downstairs. 2000 Guardian 16 Feb. 18/1 You all know what happens downstairs when that happens (loose as a goose I was, if you'll pardon my anatomicals). 2002 More! 3 Apr. 97/1 Girls who don't keep things trim downstairs. In the 70s it might have been OK to grow a rainforest, but no more. 2016 J. Buttress People's Gardener 273 Having a bit of trouble downstairs, boy, if you know what I mean. Bound to happen at my age. B. adj. (chiefly attributive). 1. a. Belonging to or situated on a lower floor.In quot. 1702 in figurative use with reference to a deliverance to a lower state or position. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [adjective] > floor or storey understairs1616 downstairs1702 two-pair1749 below stairs1772 three-pair1788 one-pair1795 upstairs1839 1702 Saul & Samuel iv. 48 We are Deliver'd then from Nothing, we have no Deliverance, but a Down-Stair-Deliverance (that is to say) we are deliver'd up to a greater Tyranny. 1848 Gardeners' Chron. 27 May 349/2 An opening..is cut through the floor into each bedroom, and an opening, covered by a slide, in the downstairs room. 1873 Belfast News-Let. 29 Sept. 1/1 When the down-stairs tenant left he took the house. 1930 Oxf. Ann. Girls 11/1 ‘That must be the dance-room,’ she told herself, staring at the brilliant light streaming through four of the downstairs windows. 1974 Guardian 3 Oct. 13/4 When my downstairs neighbour goes away she leaves me her key, so I can pop in and see that all is well. 2015 Time Out London 17 Mar. 36/1 The downstairs bathroom is a complete write-off. b. Situated in the servants' quarters; of, relating to, or characteristic of this part of the household or its inhabitants; lower class, downmarket, unrefined. Cf. below stairs adj. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > the common people > socially inferior person > [adjective] low-bred1599 dunghilled1600 ungenteel1633 underbred1650 half-bred1694 ingenteel1694 ungentlemanlike1719 lowlife1728 under-degreed1748 lower class1812 downstairs1819 low-class1836 wrong1859 (as) common as dirt (also muck)1877 plebbish1928 downscale1930 non-U1954 1819 Metropolis (ed. 2) I. 146 Does your Lordship kneel at the feet of down stairs Cinderella? 1824 M. R. Mitford Our Village I. 237 I have sometimes..feared that her down-stair life was less happy. 1868 Quiver 21 Mar. 432/1 ‘Ring the down-stairs bell,’ screamed nurse from the nursery. 1976 Southern Evening Echo (Southampton) 2 Nov. 11/6 So don't run away with the idea that theirs is a totally ‘upstairs’ world indulged by a regiment of ‘downstairs’ people. 1994 W. Safire In Love with Norma Loquendi 140 This Britishism [sc. ‘so to speak’]..was an aristocrat's apology for stooping to colorful downstairs language. 2009 A. Radford Victorian Sensation Fiction 83 This notion of the ‘downstairs class’ infiltrating the confines of the genteel family resonates through many reactions to the genre in its 1860s heyday. 2011 S. Pierson Brisket Bk. 177 Brisket may be more ‘Downstairs’ than ‘Upstairs’, but don't rule out something sparkling. 2. euphemistic. Relating to or belonging to the genital area or the area of the anus or buttocks. ΚΠ 1950 M. Spillane Vengeance is Mine iii. 45 In the downstairs department they were shipshape from plenty of walking, but upstairs it was hard to tell whether they were coming or going unless they were wearing falsies. They were pretty to look at, but I wouldn't give any of them bed room. 1964 I. Shulman Harlow xix. 277 Making promises he never kept to send an especially autographed photo of Jean plus a genuine lock of her downstairs hair, Arthur saw the fat young man to the door. 2001 Heat 27 Oct. 16 And they left nothing to imagination—apart from the black boxes that were strategically placed over the couple's, er, downstairs areas, that is. 2016 Coventry Evening Tel. (Nexis) 9 Dec. 26 It's distressing when things go a little bit awry in the ‘downstairs department’, and often adding to that physical distress, is the embarrassment factor. C. n. 1. The downstairs part of a building; spec. the servants' quarters. Also: those inhabiting or belonging to the downstairs part of a building. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > parts of building > [noun] > floor or storey > ground floor first storeyc1384 first floor1549 ground floor1601 ground-story1657 terreno1740 rez-de-chaussée1802 street floor1813 street level1830 downstairs1841 ground-flat1865 1841 Minutes Proc. St. Albans Election Comm. 32 in Rep. Comm. (Parl. Papers VI.) IX, Was it up stairs or down stairs?—Down stairs... I told you you knew; being down stairs, what part of down stairs? 1865 F. B. Palliser Hist. Lace xi. 159 The ‘Connoisseur’ complains of ‘roast beef being banished from even “downstairs” because the powdered footmen will not touch it’. 1896 Westm. Gaz. 23 Apr. 2/3 The magistrate could not discriminate whether upstairs or down-stairs began [the fight]. a1903 M. C. H. Bird in Eng. Dial. Dict. (1903) at Plancher An upper floor with boarded floor, as opposed to the brick floor of downstairs. 1949 T. Williams Let. Nov. in Five O'Clock Angel (1991) 30 Grandfather has the whole downstairs to himself as the bellowing conversations in the morning between him and the maid make sleep impossible after her arrival. 2015 L. Hunt 13 Days of Midnight iv. 113 Downstairs is empty: no ghosts, only Ham, hiding in his crate in the laundry room. †2. figurative. Hell. Obsolete. rare.In quot. 1878 with punning allusion to the proverb (the road to) hell is paved with good intentions at hell n. and int. Phrases 1b. ΚΠ 1878 H. Smart Play or Pay vi. 125 The accredited down stairs is so utterly overstocked with that pavement [of good intentions] they are supposed to be consigning it back in large quantities. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online June 2022). < adv.adj.n.1598
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