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Glite Dictionary
to round down

to round down

3 3.5
To reduce a number to the nearest whole number that is not more than it
  • phrasal verb
  • /raʊnd daʊn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : redondear hacia abajo
  • But I did try to be honest, and I erred on the side of rounding up instead of rounding down.

I want to know what is the previous I want to round up or round down.

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Examples

  • I am really hoping that when the final count is certified, Romney's total will go down enough that it will round down to 47.

    Blog text (22)

  • At least when I went to school, if you were going to round up or down, the cutoff was 5 and over went to the next higher level.

    Blog text (28)

  • Kind of like Paul Ryan running a marathon in 4 hours plus, but he rounds the figure down to 3 hours 50?

    Blog text (26)

  • Okay, let's do the math of what their graph claims they found in 2000; we'll round down to give you the benefit.

    Blog text (16)

  • Well, for each item in a set, we rounded down its value after this multiplication, right?

  • Let's round that down to $174 to make the math work out more smoothly.

    Blog text (14)

  • To the extent that hospitals use reliable staffing standards, many frequently employ the strategy of rounding down instead of rounding up.

    Academic text (1994)

  • We should round down the total cost to make it easier to pay.

  • To simplify the calculation, let's round down the number to three.

  • For your budget, you can round down any cents to ensure you stay within limits.

Surface Forms

round down infinitive
rounded down past
rounded down past participle
rounding down present participle
rounds down third person singular

Morphology

round + down

The sense 'to reduce a number to the nearest lower whole or specified place' is directly composed from 'round' (adjust a numeric value) plus 'down' (to a lower level), so a learner who knows both words can infer the operation. This verb+particle pattern is productive and cross-linguistically familiar in numerical contexts, making the MWE immediately understandable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

The phrasal verb round down comes from the image of round (making a number simpler) and down (toward a smaller value); imagine pushing a number down to the nearest whole number. So, it means 'to reduce a number to the nearest lower whole number'.