Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
down (adv., adj., v.)
To pay money down and to make a down payment are Standard adverbial and adjectival uses, respectively, of down: These down payments are the first and confirming installments, paid down at the time of agreement. As a verb, down combines with with to be “an exhortation to overthrow, to destroy something”: Down with greed, vice, and unpleasantness! Another adjectival combined form is the cliché down to earth, meaning “sensible, realistic, practical,” as in She’s a down-to-earth politician with no idealistic illusions. Also adjectival is the Conversational use of down meaning “depressed, discouraged”: He’s been down ever since he learned we’d lost the contract. Also adjectival and primarily Conversational is the expression down on, meaning “angry with, opposed to, impatient with,” but it may occur as well in some Planned or Edited English contexts, as in She’s been down on all teachers since she failed her first course. The idiom to come down (hard) on (someone or something) means “to discipline or criticize sharply,” “to proscribe some act or behavior firmly.” These are Standard.
