adown
- adverb
- Archaic
- He wandered adown the ancient path, lost in thought.
Examples
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The bird flew adown from the tree.
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Sunlight streamed adown through the tall trees in the quiet forest.
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The gentle rain fell adown the windowpane as she watched in silence.
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Sunlight streamed adown through the tall trees in the quiet forest.
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The river flowed gently adown the valley.
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The gentle rain fell adown the windowpane as she watched in silence.
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He wandered adown the ancient path, lost in thought.
Surface Forms
Morphology
adown = (semi-transparent) = a + down
The sense is very close to 'down', but the archaic 'a-' form is no longer a productive pattern in present-day English. [Postprocessing: moved 'down' from base_words to prefix]
Etymology
Adown comes from the old prefix a- meaning 'on' or 'in' plus the word down, so it simply means 'down' or 'in a downward direction'. That's why you often find it in poetry or old writing to mean moving downward in a gentle, old-fashioned way.