a. and adv. [f. LOW a. and adv. + DOWN adv.] a. Used as a more emphatic synonym for the adj. in predicative use, and for the adv. (Written as two words.) b. in attributive use; chiefly U. S., degraded, abject. (Written with hyphen.)

1

  a.  1548.  Elyot, Dict., Demissus, humble, lowe downe.

2

1689.  Locke, Civ. Govt., II. v. § 38 (1694), 194. In that part of the World which was first inhabited,… even as low down as Abrahams time, they wandred with their Flocks and their Herds … freely up and down.

3

a. 1860.  J. A. Alexander, Gosp. Jesus Chr., xv. (1861), 201. They put the date of Messiah’s advent too low down.

4

1870.  Kingsley, in Gd. Words, 205/2. To see Sirius,… not, as in our dog-days, low down on the horizon, but riding high in heaven.

5

1890.  L. C. D’Oyle, Notches, 20. They had played it rather low down on the preacher.

6

  b.  1881.  Cable, Mad. Delphine, etc., 104. It was so much better than he could have expected from his ‘low-down’ relative.

7

1882.  Daily Tel., 24 June. Lucas effected a beautiful low-down catch.

8

1888.  Eggleston, Graysons, xviii. 197. Her archaic speech was perhaps a shade better than the ‘low-down’ language of Broad Run.

9

1897.  Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 158. There is another low-down pigeon domesticated at Talagouga.

10

1901.  Scribner’s Mag., XXIX. 484/1. Every low-down Neapolitan ice-creamer in the town.

11

  Hence Low-downer U.S., a ‘poor white’ of the southern States.

12

1871.  De Vere, Americanisms (1872), 45. [Given as the designation current in North Carolina].

13

1883.  Stevenson, Silverado Sq., 131. They are at least known by a generic byword, as Poor Whites or Low-downers.

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