downstrike

English

Etymology

From down +‎ strike.

Noun

downstrike (plural downstrikes)

1. A bolt of lightning that touches ground.
   • 1994, David A. Perry, Forest Ecosystems, →ISBN, page 105:

     Seventeen hundred downstrikes of lightning later, destruction reigns over southwest Oregon.

   • 2014, Lloyd Holm, A Mountain of Many Names, →ISBN:

     Lightning downstrikes became visible as it crossed Beekman Ridge south of Butte Falls.

   • 2016, Kai Huschke, 50 Hikes in Northern New Mexico (Explorer's 50 Hikes), →ISBN:

     These storms typically arrive in the afternoon, building incredible cloud banks that can unleash rapid-fire lightning strikes. Cells often will hover and send forth dozens of downstrikes in a concentrated area, particularly in areas like the Valle Caldera.

2. (electrical engineering) A (usually unintended) branch of current that arcs downward to ground.
   • 1959, Electrical Times - Volume 135, page 355:

     Besides forming new cores, arcs may also form branches, and "downstrikes" are liable to be particularly troublesome.

   • 1959, Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers:

     When a downstrike is established, the longer arc in parallel dies away rapidly and the process appears on oscillograms as a sudden reduction in arc voltage.

   • 1959 -, The Electrical Review - Volume 164, Issues 10-17, page 447:

     This was prevented by reducing the space between the plates in that portion of the chute, so that when downstrikes occurred tie new arc core remained under control and returned up into the chute again.

   • 1962, Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, page 204:

     These "downstrikes" were recorded with an electromagnetic oscillograph and a high-speed camera, and now a good correlation exists between the two records.

3. A blow by a hand or weapon that occurs with a downward striking motion.
   • 1977, Michael D. Echanis, Knife Self-Defense for Combat, →ISBN, page 34:

     Attacker executes a downstrike. Defender performs a two-hand catch, blocks, rotates through and performs an elbow-break with accompanying shoulder dislocation.

   • 2013, Ian McDonald -, King of Morning, Queen of Day, →ISBN:

     Its blades gleam with stolen light; the long sword slips up to Jodan to block their downstrike.

   • 2017, Douglas Nicholas, Three Queens in Erin: A Novel, →ISBN, page 22:

     There were two men left by the rail and Hob whirled to take them; his sword swung up and hovered an instant before the downstrike.

4. A downward plucking motion on a stringed instrument.
   • 1985, John Schneider, The Contemporary Guitar, →ISBN, page 117:

     How the guitarist chooses to create the differences between the accented and unaccented notes has usually been left up to the player, although it is usual for players to use a downstrike (apoyando) for an accented tone and an upstroke (tirando) for an unaccented tone.

5. A downstroke; a downward movement that terminates in striking something.
   • 1965, United States Congress Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Hearings, page 185:

     It is sort of like paying a carpenter for the downstrike of his hammer and saying the upstroke is on his on time.

   • 1982 -, Women's Sports - Volume 4, Issues 7-12, page 64:

     On the subject of environments, our anatomically contoured houndstooth design provides exceptional traction on all terrains and in all weather conditions. What's more, the studs have a unique flex action: they automatically release any turf they may have picked up on downstrike.

   • 1985, Transactions of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers:

     1 . Full pump card. 2. Three strokes confirm pumpoff. 3. Power shutotf at mid-downstroke. 4. Pumping unit stops at midstroke, restart will be made in downstrike.

   • 1988, WS Finholm, Piano key action: US Patent 4,774,868:

     Shaft 24a carried the back check 24 for checking the downstrike of its related hammer 22.

   • 1988 -, Orville D. Lascoe, Handbook of Fabrication Processes, →ISBN, page 25:

     Because the pressure is a steady, controlled flow, the available tonnage of a hydraulic press brake is the same at all points during the downstroke (Figure 1C-9). The ram can also be instantly stopped, anywhere during the downstrike, by simply releasing the foot pedal.

6. A type of manual typewriter that causes the letters to print on the downstroke of the keys and retract as the key rises.
   • 1985, Frank T. Masi, The Typewriter Legend, page 67:

     These machines had straight-line keyboards and a semicircular downstrike typebasket that made for easy visibility by the typist.

   • 2011, Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector, →ISBN, page 25:

     Oak tables displayed platoons of typewriters: downstrike typewriters, upstrike typewriters, vintage World War I typewriters, turn-of-thecentury typewriters—a 1901 Armstrong, a Densmore 1, a brass 1881 Hamilton Automatic, even an 1877 Sholes & Glidden in its case --each perfect in its kind, primed and polished so the metal shone.

   • 2017, Typewriters: Iconic Machines from the Golden Age of Mechanical Writing, →ISBN:

     Though it is classified as a posterior downstrike typewriter, with its typebars positioned behind the platen, the Waverley offers much more than one classification can possibly convey.

7. A variety of various devices that operates primarily by a downward striking action.
   • 1952, SC Shill, Piano action: US Patent 2,620,700:

     My invention relates to pianofortes of the general character embodied in my United States Letters Patent No. 2,377,582, issued June 5, 1945, and wherein is disclosed and claimed a horizontal, downstrike hammer action particularly adapted, although not necessarily, for use in a lightweight, portable piano.

   • 1974, Paper Board Packaging - Volume 59, Issues 7-12, page 95:

     Sizes now available in vertical downstrike balers are: 72 inches, 60 inches and 36 inches.

   • 1985, International Atomic Energy Agency, Management of cladding hulls and fuel hardware:

     After loading in a 15 MN downstrike press, providing 168 MPa, a volume reduction by a factor of 4.6 is achieved.

8. A line that is drawn with a downward stroke.
   • 1911 Jan-Mar, OG Sonneck, “" Caractacus" Not Arne's Caractacus”, in Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, volume 12, number 2:

     I have marked the accented syllable by the Downstrike, leaving the unaccented ones to the Upstrike

   • 1954, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Analecta Orientalia: posthumous writings and selected minor works:

     These figures are rendered as usual in Arabic letters and, as is well known, these are especially apt to confound the figures for 10 and 50 by a wrong (or lacking) puctuation...and those for 3 and 8 (8 being written as ح and 3 by the same letter but with an incomplete downstrike م).

   • 2009, Lori Schumacher, Cynthia C. Chernecky, Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, →ISBN, page 96:

     In hypothermia, the downstrike of QRS on an ECG is called the 'J' point.

Verb

downstrike (third-person singular simple present downstrikes, present participle downstriking, simple past downstruck, past participle downstricken)

1. To strike down; to knock down, kill, or cripple.
   • 1862, Half-year abstract of medical sciences - Volume 35, page 106:

     Nearly twenty years have elapsed since my friend was downstruck by his attack.

   • 1872, Herbert Randolph, So far [poems]., page 45:

     God does not downstrike me, a god ?

   • 1877, John Dryden Corbet, The Collected Poems of John Dryden Corbet - Volume 1, page 318:

     There too the downstruck foe must yield his loos'ning grip.

2. To dismay, reject, demote, or render lowly.
   • 2010, Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels, →ISBN, page 108:

     Did you imagine us bigguns your servants, mebbe, or some such downstruck types?' 'Nobody were downstruck there. They were all with telling me what to do.

   • 2011, Jan Gero, Me on Me, →ISBN:

     I tried to animate myself to behave a little more social, turning in circles a couple of times, making a slinky stepping pattern, and generally quickening my behavior in order to appear more alert and excited. I was not picked. I was downstruck. I felt the world had collapsed for me!

   • 2012, Julian Hawthorne, The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations, →ISBN, page 247:

     Instead of the downstricken criminal I had dreamed of, there stood before me a man of society thinking about the affairs of his club.

3. (of current or lightning) To arc to ground in a downstrike.
   • 1962 -, Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, page 204:

     While a number of successful interruptions were made with this chute, it exhibited a proneness to "downstrike." The arc would run down one of the baffles onto one of the arcing contacts and short- circuit a portion of the metallic baffle stack.

4. To strike from above.
   • 1982, David Wainwright, Broadwood, by appointment: a history, page 55:

     This was a downstriking hammer which hit the strings at a point where a silk band revolved against them, activated by a treadle.

   • 2010, Diane Duane, Dark Mirror, →ISBN:

     The wood in the Luberon looked back at him, the shafts of downstriking sunlight, the tiny scrap of fluttering light.

   • 2013, Gregg Hurwitz, The Kill Clause, →ISBN:

     Tim felt himself lowered a few inches, his feet finding the ground again, and, as Debuffier's hand reared back to deliver a paralyzing blow to the head, Tim rotated in, Green Beret style, a downstriking punch to the groin, quick and hard like a bear river-plunging for fish.

   • 2014, May Sarton, The Land of Silence: And Other Poems, →ISBN:

     The boy glimmered Among the hollowed darkness of the rocks, Shot through the shallow places laughing, Stood in the sunlight, high up, And like a god suspended in green air He followed falling water and downstruck.

   • 2014, Randy Boyagoda, Beggar's Feast, →ISBN:

     The car jerked away just as Piyal was knocked down, and looking up the last he saw was so many downstriking, hammering feet.

   • 2016, Nicholas J. Giordano, Physics of the Piano, →ISBN:

     As one might imagine, the design of a downstriking action is very challenging since gravity cannot be used to help bring the hammer back to its “ready” position in preparation for a subsequent note.

5. To move downward in a stiking motion.
   • 1984, Richard Monaco, Parsival, Or a Knight's Tale, →ISBN, page 98:

     Parsival bounced upright and as the fellow reined close and chopped a swordstroke at his head the young knight, forgetting his own weapon in his rage, caught the downstriking arm with both hands and heaved the shocked man up out of his seat, across his own horse's neck, and spinning down the hill after his companion who was still rolling, quite slowly now, in the lush green field.

   • 2006, S J Russell, Handbook of Nonwovens, →ISBN, page 41:

     For example, a short card requiring minimum carding of short fibres may be designed to take fibres from the feed rollers using a downstriking licker straight to the cylinder.

   • 2013, Roger Levy, Icarus, →ISBN:

     Quill stood at the railing and watched the bird slowly fade into the distance, swooping gloriously under bridges, its downstriking wingtips all but flicking the water.

6. To go in a downward direction.
   • 1917, Walter Page Wright, Food, Fruit & Flowers, page 202:

     Those which are full of spindly, ingrowing wood we will thin rigorously, working with one of the nursery models before our mind's eye, and taking care that when our task is done, not a single ingrowing or downstriking shoot is left on the tree.

   • 1976, Robert E. Longacre, An Anatomy of Speech Notions, page 195:

     A parent-child dialogue is a downstriking dialogue and a child-parent dialogue is an upstriking dialogue.

7. (masonry) To point (finish a joint) by pressing mortar in at the bottom.
   • 2003, Essex Archaeology and History:

     There was no trace of plaster inside the stair tower in the Barns: most of the interior was in brick, and the mortar pointing was downstruck and usually scored.

   • 2012, Sarah Gunn, Stone House Construction, →ISBN, page 112:

     A struck joint is made by running the trowel along the joint before the mortar is hard, either pressing in at the top: upstruck (or weathered), which exposes the mortar to the weather, or pressing in at the bottom: downstruck (or struck).

8. To play a stringed instrument with a downward plucking motion.
   • 2010, Peter Mills, Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison, →ISBN:

     Armstrong doesn't use the story-within-a-story motif; his version begins with a New Orleans funeral jazz slow shuffle, picking up the tempo at 0.08, led by Armstrong's trumpet, trailed by the unmistakably wildly wandering New Orleans clarinet, skeletal barrelhouse piano, downstruck banjo and the ragged-shoed chuf-chuf-chuf of the melancholic New Orleans swing.

Adjective

downstrike (comparative more downstrike, superlative most downstrike)

1. downward or further down.
   • 1959, Field Trip Guidebook, page 30:

     The Earlies Gap Biotite Gneiss may therefore indicate a downstrike lithologic change resulting from original variations of the protolith and from a more thorough.

   • 1976, Geoscience Report - Issues 141-144, page 20:

     Pyroclastics along the southeast shore of Manitou Island appear to be the [downstrike] equivalents of Troutlet Lake pyroclastics.

   • 1989, Zhexi Luo, Structure of the Petrosals of Multituberculata (mammalia) and Morphology of the Molars of Early Arctocyonids (condylarthra, Mammalia)..:

     The second character that contribute to the asymmetry is the convexing of the preprotocrista. The convex preprotocrista enlarges the trigon basin in the downstrike direction of the hypoconid, thus increasing Phase II contact (Fig. 53G).

Adverb

downstrike (comparative more downstrike, superlative most downstrike)

1. In a downward direction
   • 1981, Forhandlingar, page 46:

     Amal supracrustals and other rocks were traced from the syncline core to the rest of Magnusson's (1960) 'Gothian' area and thence downstrike across the alleged Gothian- Pregothian boundary into the 'Pregothian' region.

   • 1985, Pellissippi Parkway Extension, I-40-I-75 to TN-115:

     The spring is downstrike from a fairly large area of low perennial stream density.

   • 2006, Carolyn Diane Anglin, Gold in the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt, Northwest Territories:

     Analytical results of the IP profiles for both Gold Lake and Crestaurum areas (Katsube et al., 2006), suggest that the mineralization in the shear zones are discontinuous downstrike.

   • 2012, Jeanne Sauber, Renata Dmowska, Seismogenic and Tsunamigenic Processes in Shallow Subduction Zones, →ISBN:

     However, a lone foreshock at the southern end of this zone, some 140 km downstrike of the mainshock's epicenter, implies that conditions existed for rupture into that zone.

Anagrams

• strike down