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.)
a. 1548. Elyot, Dict., Demissus, humble, lowe downe.
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.
a. 1860. J. A. Alexander, Gosp. Jesus Chr., xv. (1861), 201. They put the date of Messiahs advent too low down.
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.
1890. L. C. DOyle, Notches, 20. They had played it rather low down on the preacher.
b. 1881. Cable, Mad. Delphine, etc., 104. It was so much better than he could have expected from his low-down relative.
1882. Daily Tel., 24 June. Lucas effected a beautiful low-down catch.
1888. Eggleston, Graysons, xviii. 197. Her archaic speech was perhaps a shade better than the low-down language of Broad Run.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 158. There is another low-down pigeon domesticated at Talagouga.
1901. Scribners Mag., XXIX. 484/1. Every low-down Neapolitan ice-creamer in the town.
Hence Low-downer U.S., a poor white of the southern States.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms (1872), 45. [Given as the designation current in North Carolina].
1883. Stevenson, Silverado Sq., 131. They are at least known by a generic byword, as Poor Whites or Low-downers.