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Glite Dictionary
🏛️ To remove from power 📉 To reduce 😞 To lower spirits ✈️ To lower or land 💻 To crash a system 👏 To get big applause
to bring down

to bring down

2 5.4
Make an audience clap or cheer loudly
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : arrancar aplausos
  • President-elect Tom Dobbs paid an impromptu visit to Congress and literally brought down the House with laughter.
  • bring down the house

And then Rosie O'Donnell comment brought down the house when he made it.

Examples

  • We're expecting Mars to serenade the crowd and models with his just-released single, "Locked Out of Heaven," but you know he'd bring down the house with past hits "Grenade" and "Just the Way You Are," too.

    Blog text (31)

  • "It absolutely brought down the house.

    Blog text (29)

  • You ready to bring down the house?

    Ted (2012)

  • I always bring down the house.

    Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018)

  • It's going to bring down the house.

    Compromising Positions (1985)

  • Yeah, Buster Moon certainly brought down the house once and for all today.

    Sing (2016)

  • Guaranteed to bring down the house.

    The Romantics (2010)

  • It'll bring down the house.

    Monsters, Inc. (2001)

  • Keyshia brought down the house with her latest single "Enough of No Love" and ...

    Blog text (1)

  • She brought down the house with her incredible dance performance last night.

Synonyms

to bring down the house
vsto bring down
  • Informal
4 5.5

To make an audience clap and cheer loudly

elicits enthusiastic approval without needing prolonged applause
to seduce an audience
vsto bring down
1 6.7

Make an audience like you and pay close attention

elicits applause or approval more than just attracting attention
to bring to someone's feet
vsto bring down
6.7

To cause a group of people to stand and clap to show approval

elicits enthusiastic approval without necessarily making people stand
to get a crowd going
vsto bring down
  • Informal
4.8

Make an audience feel excited and cheer

elicits applause or approval rather than general excitement

Antonyms

boo
70 5.9

A loud sound people make to show they do not like something

to displease
28 4.7

To make someone feel annoyed or unhappy

How Applauded

to bring down
  • Informal
2 5.4
to wow
  • Informal
37 3.6
to delight
79 2.1
to impress
457 2.8
to entertain
226 2.0
to please
216 1.0

Surface Forms

bring down infinitive
bringing down present participle
brings down third person singular
brought down past
brought down past participle

Morphology

bring + down

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 in the sense of pleasing an audience comes from the old image of a performer causing so much excitement that the crowd seems to 'bring the house down' with cheers, so it means 'to get great applause or approval'.