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What is "downbeat"

Crossword clues for downbeat

downbeat
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
downbeat
I.adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Mubarak gave a downbeat assessment of the situation in the Middle East.
▪ The latest economic surveys are more downbeat as a result of the recent decline in world trade.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Cheney may be almost deliberately downbeat, but Bush's choice was unusually illuminating.
▪ The futuristic look is nicely accomplished, without a lot of eye candy: darkish, downbeat, more melancholy than despairing.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Both of them said the word on the same downbeat, which made them burst into laughter at how hilarious they sounded.
▪ Notice that the patterns rarely fall on the downbeat.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
downbeat

downbeat \downbeat\ n. (Music) the first beat of a musical measure (as the conductor's arm moves downward).

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
downbeat

1876 (n.), in reference to downward stroke of a conductor's baton; 1952 (adj.) in figurative sense of "pessimistic," but that is probably via associations of the word down (adv.), because the beat itself is no more pessimistic than the upbeat is optimistic.

Wiktionary
downbeat

a. sad or pessimistic n. (context music English) The accented beat at the beginning of a bar (indicated by a conductor with a downward stroke)

WordNet
downbeat

n. the first beat of a musical measure (as the conductor's arm moves downward)

Wikipedia
Downbeat

Downbeat, down beat or Down Beat may refer to:

  • Downbeat, the first beat of a measure in music. This term originated from orchestral conducting, where the lowest point on the baton signals the first beat in a given measure. It is now used widely throughout music to also indicate the beginning of a piece of music.
  • Down Beat, an American jazz magazine
  • Downtempo or downbeat, a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music
  • Down Beat is the NATO reporting name of the main surface search radar carried by the Russian/ Soviet Tupolev Tu-22M bomber.
  • Downbeat, a jazz club in New York City. See: List of jazz venues in the United States.

Usage examples of "downbeat".

In Celia it produced a physical weariness, worsening her already downbeat mood.

The hut’s interior was dank: folding chairs aligned in uneven rows, cigarette butts dotting a chipped linoleum floor, pictures from Downbeat and Metronome scotch-taped to the walls--half white guys, half Negroes, like the management was trying to establish jazzbo parity.

On the downbeats, I could just make out some bare skin over the top of the pogoing crowd.

Of course it is easiest to launch from a perch or height, but if there's no such convenience handy, all they need is a run of twenty or twenty-flve meters, enough for a couple of lifts and downbeats of the great extended wings, and then a step that doesn't touch the ground, and then they're up, aloft, soaring—maybe circling back overhead to smile and wave down at uplifted faces before arrowing off above the roofs or over the hills.

Jack lifts a finger like a professor about to make a point or a bandleader about to deliver the downbeat.

He belched, then raised his arms, gave a downbeat, and the tentful of beggars began to sing.