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downy

UK/ˈdaʊni/US/ˈdaʊni/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,148 of 15,258leans written

Downy means covered in very soft fine hair. A downy cheek, downy feathers, downy and warm.

Down is the layer of fluffy feathers under the outer ones, and it insulates by trapping air rather than by being thick — which is why a down jacket is light and warm and useless when wet. Of a face it means the first soft hair of youth.

Definitions of downy

  1. 1adjectivedownyCovered in very soft fine hair.C1

    “The newly hatched ducklings were soft and downy.”

downy is a quality of softness.

Where it comes from

  1. Middle English

    doun

  2. English

    down

  3. English, today

    downy

Built from

  • doune · Middle English — down
  • adūne · Old English — down, downward
  • ofdūne · Old English — down (literally “off the hill”)
  • of · Old English — of, off of

From down + -y. down comes from Middle English doun. From Middle English doun, doune (“down”), from Old English dūne (“down”), aphetic form of adūne (“down, downward”), from earlier ofdūne (“down”) literally “off the hill”, from of (“of, off of”) + dūn (“hill, mount, dune, down”). More at Etymology 2 below. For the development from directional phrases to prepositions, compare dene, dāle, whence dal. Compare also stq, del. Cognate with Scots doon (“down”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Texture & Touch

Practise this word

downy in the wild

  • The downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America.

    Downy woodpecker

  • The downy woodpecker is very similar in appearance to the hairy woodpecker, although they are not closely related.

    Downy woodpecker

  • Yield loss associated with downy mildew is most likely related to soft rots that occur after plant canopies collapse and sunburn occurs on fruit.

    Downy mildew

  • Cucurbit downy mildew only affects leaves of cucurbit plants.

    Downy mildew

  • Other names more rarely used include downy ash, swamp ash, and water ash.

    Fraxinus pennsylvanica

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the doune family

down

downy — used about once every 8,182 pages · #11,148 · point at the bar for the others