What is "downshift"

Usage examples of "downshift".

Harry driving through the confusion of Nashville and then, a couple of hours later, over the high pass at Monteagle, downshifting twice to get up the narrow, cliff-hugging road, and then waiting patiently behind a big semitrailer on the way down the other side.

But at the last minute, thinking of Scrounger, I downshifted, gunned it and shoved them right through the space and into the back of a parked car.

He downshifted whenever he needed to slow to take a curve, letting the engine do the work.

As it grew louder, he recognized it as the noise made by a laboring engine as the vehicle upshifted, then downshifted.

I browse the electronics and bio-tech stalls in the late-afternoon, late-summer sunlight, shoulders hunched in a parka -- Scottish Augusts have been a bit chilly since the Gulf Stream downshifted -- and elbows on guard against the crowds of tourists jostling for the bootleg foreign tech.

Hogg downshifted and crawled the last hundred feet to the gate in the van's bottom gear.

Hogg downshifted and crawled the last hundred feet to the gate in the vans bottom gear.

The engine stuttered and boomed as she downshifted, but she did not lose the car's minimal traction except for the instant a driving wheel slipped on garbage and the coupe's right side streaked the plaster silver.

He massaged the ache where his right leg ended, not bothering to downshift until he came to El Negro's villa.

Pitt downshifted the Snow Cruiser into second gear to climb the series of low mounds and valleys.

There was no good reason for it, but the sound of distant trains and distant truck traffic, trucks downshifting to climb a hill, left him feeling moody.