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say it: DOWN-wurd
downward is an adjective and adverb meaning "extending or moving from a higher to a lower place". It carries 3 recorded senses.
extending or moving from a higher to a lower place
“the down staircase”
“the downward course of the stream”
on or toward a surface regarded as a base
“he lay face downward”
“the downward pull of gravity”
spatially or metaphorically from a higher to a lower level or position
“don't fall down”
“rode the lift up and skied down”
“prices plunged downward”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for downward come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.