UP AND DOWN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does up and down mean? 

• UP AND DOWN (adverb)
  The adverb UP AND DOWN has 2 senses:

1. moving backward and forward along a given course

2. alternately upward and downward

  Familiarity information: UP AND DOWN used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UP AND DOWN (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Moving backward and forward along a given course

Context example:

all up and down the Eastern seaboard

Sense 2

Meaning:

Alternately upward and downward

Context example:

he eyed him up and down

 Context examples 

“Miss Mowcher!” said I, after glancing up and down the empty street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; “how do you come here? What is the matter?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then he rose, and paced slowly up and down the room, his chin sunk upon his breast.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who paced up and down.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And he looked the other up and down as a man would look a horse up and down.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

There was an interview—a short one—during which you walked up and down the room.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Mr. Holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,” said he.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the years before and during menopause, the levels of female hormones can go up and down.

(Hormone Replacement Therapy, NIH: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The intrinsic muscles spanning the length of the tongue that move the tip of the tonge up and down.

(Intrinsic Tongue Muscle Transverse Component, NCI Thesaurus)

I motioned him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the room in the extremest agitation.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)