Dictionary Definition
downtown adj : of or located in the lower part of
a town, or in the business center; "downtown Manhattan";
"delinquents roaming the downtown streets" [ant: uptown] n : the commercial center
of a town or city [syn: business
district] adv : toward or in the lower or central part of town
[ant: uptown]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
downtownTranslations
either the lower, or the business center of a
city or town
- Dutch: binnenstad
- Finnish: keskusta
- German: Stadtmitte
- Italian: centro
- Kurdish:
- Russian: центр (tsentr)
- Spanish: centro
(basketball) Outside the three-point line, or
generally far from the basket
Synonyms
- CBD, Central Business District, city (Australia)
Adverb
downtown- in, or towards the downtown area
- You need to go downtown four blocks.
Adjective
downtown- of, relating to, or situated in the downtown area
- John walked everyday to his downtown job.
See also
Extensive Definition
Downtown is a term primarily used in North
America to refer to a city's core, usually in a geographical,
commercial, and community sense.
Etymology
The term is thought to have been coined in
New
York City, where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the
original town at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. As the
town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow
on the island was toward the north, proceeding upriver from the
original settlement (the "up" and "down" terminology in turn came
from the customary map design in which up was north and down was
south). It was not included in dictionaries as late as the 1880s.
By the early 1900s, downtown was clearly established as the proper
term in American
English for a city's central business district.
In most other North American cities, "downtown"
is the formal name of the neighborhood in which the city's central
business district is located. Someone or something within the
boundaries of that neighborhood is said to be "in downtown" rather
than "downtown".
References
downtown in Arabic: وسط البلد
downtown in Bulgarian: Даунтаун
downtown in Czech: Downtown
downtown in German: Downtown
downtown in Spanish: Distrito financiero
downtown in Persian: مرکز شهر
downtown in Portuguese: Downtown
downtown in Romanian: Centru civic
downtown in Simple English: Downtown
downtown in Slovak: Downtown
downtown in Swedish: Downtown
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Bowery,
Chinatown, East End,
East Side, Little Hungary, Little Italy, West End, West Side,
barrio, black ghetto,
blighted area, burghal,
business district, central city, citified, city, city center, civic, core, ghetto, greenbelt, inner city,
interurban, metropolitan, midtown, municipal, oppidan, outskirts, red-light district,
residential district, run-down neighborhood, shopping center, skid
road, skid row, slum,
slums, suburban, suburbia, suburbs, tenderloin, tenement
district, town, uptown, urban, urban blight, village