to go down south
7
2.3
- phrasal verb
- During the summer vacation, many people choose to go down south for a relaxing beach holiday.
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Watch on YouTubeRome, Naples, you can go down South to Calabria.
- Rome, Naples, you can go down South to Calabria.
- Because right after we recorded that we I went down South to do some videos.
- And I was advised by everyone, don't go down South.
- Whereas like when you start going down South, they like football, they play, so they play golf.
- And she went down South and she had this world, a World Peace pin that she wore around.
- And it was his temper that caused him to eventually go down South.
Examples
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Well, I probably will go down South to where my son lives.
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His mother is putting him on a train to go down South to Mississippi to visit his uncle Moe's right.
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I think you should go down south first.
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I went down south and brought 'em back.
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And then we're going down south.
Fiction book (1991) -
When someone comes to Canada first, we recommend that they go down south.
Academic text (2001) -
I'm going down south today.
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Y'all goin' down south to Mexico?
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Rome, Naples, you can go down South to Calabria.
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Every winter, my family and I go down south to escape the cold weather and enjoy the sunshine.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to travel toward a region further south' is directly derivable from 'go' (travel) + 'down' (directional/lower) + 'south' (toward the south). The particle 'down' is a colloquial directional emphasis but does not introduce an idiomatic shift, and similar directional constructions exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the parts will understand the phrase.
Etymology
Go down south comes from the simple image of moving toward the bottom of a map, where places are 'south' and often warmer. So when people say go down south they mean 'to travel to a region further south', often to escape cold weather or for a holiday.