to bring down
267
3.3
- phrasal verb
- /brɪŋ daʊn/
- And as in a crowded forest, a single falling tree can bring down far too many others.
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Watch on YouTubeWe take them up to his farm and then we bring down the vegetables.
- We take them up to his farm and then we bring down the vegetables.
- And then the military was going to bring down an armored division by rail.
- And I told you that we brought down Jade, Olivia and Megan from Glasgow down to London.
- They had to bring down the, the, the stairs, the ladder.
Examples
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OK, so let's bring down the laptop display, please, boy.
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You bring down the walls.
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Slowly bring her down to the bed.
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We take them up to his farm and then we bring down the vegetables.
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I brought you down here to discuss your inheritance.
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Get a GPS on it so we can start to figure out how to bring it down.
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Louis, you want to go upstairs and get Mrs. Hollinger and bring her down here for me, please?
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They brought the catalog down.
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Bring the lights down.
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The pilot managed to bring down the aircraft safely on the runway after the emergency.
Synonyms
∞
5.5
Cause someone or something to fall and be defeated
∞
1.0
To come down and rest on a surface
408
1.0
Make something go down in position, amount, or strength
294
1.8
To move something from a high place to a lower place
149
3.2
To bring something or someone down from a higher place
106
2.0
Make something move down by using force
84
1.6
To move something from a high place to a lower place
49
3.6
To land on the ground after a flight
38
2.0
Move something slowly from a higher to a lower position
14
3.6
To land on the ground or another surface
9
3.5
To bring a plane down safely at an airport
4
5.8
To land a plane in an emergency
Antonyms
How Low
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to elicit enthusiastic applause' cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'bring' (to cause or convey) and 'down' (to lower or defeat); those constituents normally indicate reduction, movement, or defeat rather than approval. This meaning arises idiomatically in the phrase 'bring down the house' and is culturally specific, so a B1 learner who knows the words but has not encountered the idiom would not predict this sense.
Etymology
Bring down has a literal image: to carry or guide something from higher to lower ground—like landing a plane or bringing a box down a stair—so it means 'to move something or someone to a lower place'.