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tumbledown

adjectiveC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Tumbledown means falling into ruin through neglect. A tumbledown barn.

It goes before the noun and describes buildings rather than anything else. A tumbledown cottage is picturesque in a photograph and a great deal of work in life.

Definitions of tumbledown

  1. 1adjectivetumbledownFalling into ruin through neglect.C1

    “They bought a tumbledown farmhouse and spent nine years on it.”

tumbledown is a quality.

Where it comes from

Deverbal from tumble down.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

tumbledown in the wild

  • Kerouac relates his trip in a tumbledown fashion as a lonesome traveler.

    Satori in Paris

  • Eucalyptus dealbata, known as the tumbledown red gum or hill redgum, is a species of small tree that is endemic to eastern Australia.

    Eucalyptus dealbata

  • Eucalyptus panda, commonly known as tumbledown ironbark or Yetman ironbark, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to eastern Australia.

    Eucalyptus panda

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.