downside

Compound of down +‎ side.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌsaɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

downside (plural downsides)

1. A disadvantageous aspect of something that is normally advantageous.

   The downside of obtaining a higher rank is that far more work is expected.

   • 1998, Hal Rothman, Gerald W. Nash, Richard W. Etulain, The Greening of a Nation?:, page 136:

     Hazardous and nuclear waste came to represent the downside of industrial prosperity.

   • 2000, Zvonimir Balog, Nice Manners, Or, How Can I Avoid Growing Up to be a Twit, page 200:

     The downside of being snaggle-toothed is that you whistle through them and people can't understand what you're talking about.

   • 2005, Edward S. Rubin, Greenhouse Gas Control TechnologiesGreenhouse Gas Control Technologies, page 456:

     The downside of using acid gas for enhanced oil recovery is that the incremental produced oil contains H₂S and has to be desulphurized.

2. A downward tendency, especially in the price of shares etc.
   • 1987, Information Circular:

     The strategy is used both to increase the return on the underlying stock and to provide a limited amount of downside protection.

   • 1994, The Review of Futures Markets - Volume 13, Issues 1-2, page 112:

     I could go all the way back to 1982 and I'm sure the effects of the expiration will be even more exacerbated on the downside of the spread.

   • 2002, The Professional Investor, page 17:

     In Table 3, the options are shown for the same client who will accept a one in ten chance of breaching the downside of -3% in any one year.

   • 2006, James Bonnet, Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers:

     Alienation: A stage on the downside of the passage wherein the holdfast and the antihero take actions which bring about a disintegration of personality.

3. The side of something that is at the bottom, or that is intended to face downward.
   • 1960, Lloyd T. Gustafson, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, page 165:

     An apparatus for heat-treating a flowing fluid, comprising a fluid source; a heat exchange unit provided with a regenerative section, the latter having an upside through which such fluid is caused to flow and a downside through which such fluid is caused to flow subsequent to being heated, said upside and downside being separated from one another by a heat-conductive wall, […]

   • 1962, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological, page 144:

     The buildings on the downside of the station were demolished and new premises of modern design constructed on the new platform.

   • 1999, Patricia S. Yoder-Wise, Leading and Managing in Nursing, page 330:

     Notice in Figure 19.2 that polarities naturally and predictably "flow" (arrows represent a plot of changes in results) from the downside of pole L toward the upside of pole R; the into the downside of pole R; then toward the upside of the first, pole L; and finally back to the downside of L, where it all began.

   • 2003, Proceedings of the 2003 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, page 223:

     Moreover, the flow chugging was observed at the downside of the plate.

• upside

• downside up

• dies down, disendow, disowned