DOWNHILL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does downhill mean? 

• DOWNHILL (noun)
  The noun DOWNHILL has 2 senses:

1. the downward slope of a hill

2. a ski race down a trail

  Familiarity information: DOWNHILL used as a noun is rare.

• DOWNHILL (adjective)
  The adjective DOWNHILL has 1 sense:

1. sloping down rather steeply

  Familiarity information: DOWNHILL used as an adjective is very rare.

• DOWNHILL (adverb)
  The adverb DOWNHILL has 2 senses:

1. toward a lower or inferior state

2. toward the bottom of a hill

  Familiarity information: DOWNHILL used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOWNHILL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The downward slope of a hill

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("downhill" is a kind of...):

declension; declination; decline; declivity; descent; downslope; fall (a downward slope or bend)

Derivation:

downhill (sloping down rather steeply)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A ski race down a trail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("downhill" is a kind of...):

ski race; skiing race (a race between people wearing skis)

• DOWNHILL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sloping down rather steeply

Synonyms:

declivitous; downhill; downward-sloping

Similar:

descending (coming down or downward)

Derivation:

downhill (the downward slope of a hill)

• DOWNHILL (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Toward a lower or inferior state

Context example:

your performance has been going downhill for a long time now

Sense 2

Meaning:

Toward the bottom of a hill

Context example:

running downhill, he gained a lot of speed

 Context examples 

They are dark streaks that extend gradually downhill in warm seasons, then fade away in winter and reappear the next year.

(Recurring Martian Streaks: Flowing Sand, Not Water?, NASA)

These downhill flows, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), often have been described as possibly related to liquid water.

(NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars, NASA)

Multiple slides carried some 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of land far downhill - in some places farther than 49 feet (15 meters).

(NASA Map Reveals a New Landslide Risk Factor, NASA)

This area lies just downhill from a geological contact zone the rover has been studying near "Marias Pass" on lower Mount Sharp.

(Curiosity Rover Inspects Unusual Bedrock, NASA)

He cleared the sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill now, along the halyards to the mast.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Thirty-eight of the sites showed active gully formation, such as new channel segments and increased deposits at the downhill end of some gullies.

(NASA spacecraft observes further evidence of dry ice gullies on Mars, NASA)

The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes deserted, in their flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Ere they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at “ho,” to go ahead at “mush,” to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the wheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

A track about one-third of a mile (500 meters) long on Mars shows where an irregularly shaped boulder careened downhill to its current upright position, seen in a July 3, 2014, image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

(Tall boulder rolls down martian hill, lands upright, NASA)