🏀 Toward opponent's end 🏀 Opponent's court area

downcourt

1 3.5

Moving toward the other team's end of the court during a fast break

adjective
/ˈdaʊnˌkɔrt/

: hacia el fondo

raced downcourt

Examples

And he says lots of times you don't even run downcourt.

Airplane! (1980)
He can get downcourt as quick as anyone I've ever seen.

Hoop Dreams (1994)
The reason there were only nine basketball players in the squad room—rather than the customary ten, five to a team—was that the forward on one of the teams had been shot while running downcourt for a basket.

Fiction book (1999)
As he dribbled the ball, he sped downcourt to set up for the next play.
The player dashed downcourt, hoping to make a fast break before the defense could catch up.
After stealing the ball, she quickly passed it to her teammate who was running downcourt.

Synonyms

downfield

vsdowncourt

14 3.5

Toward the opponent's end of the playing field

moves toward the far end of a playing court mainly in basketball

Surface Forms

downcourt positive

Morphology

downcourt = court (transparent) = down + court

The meaning is a straightforward spatial combination of 'down' + 'court', inferable by learners familiar with these words and sports contexts. [Postprocessing: moved 'down' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Downcourt combines down and court, where down means 'toward the far end' and court means 'playing area'. So, to go downcourt is to move toward the other team's end of the court, especially when running or passing in basketball.