downtime

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See also: down-time and down time

English[edit]

WOTD – 4 September 2023

Etymology[edit]

From down (“out of order; out of service; inoperable”) +‎ time.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

downtime (countable and uncountable, plural downtimes)

  1. The amount of time lost due to forces beyond one's control, such as the breakdown of machinery or a computer crash.
    Antonym: uptime
    Coordinate term: idle time
    • 2017 March 1, Alex Hern, “How did an Amazon glitch leave people literally in the dark?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-30:
      A short internet outage might sound like a trifling matter – don’t we all need a little bit of time offline now and then? – but for many, the pervasiveness of the so-called “internet of things” meant downtime at Amazon affected their physical life as well as their digital one.
    • 2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney Offers Lessons from a Legendary Life”, in The A.V. Club‎[2], archived from the original on 2022-11-07:
      As the world turns inward, trapped inside in various stages of pandemic quarantine, numerous songwriting luminaries (often blessed with their own in-home studios) have tried to use the downtime creatively—from Millennial stars like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande to longtime veterans like Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.
  2. A period of time when work or other activity is less intense or stops.
  3. (chiefly Canada, US) A period of time set aside for relaxation and rest; leisure time, free time.
    I’ve been working all weekend. I need some downtime.
    • 2010 August 24, Matt Richtel, “Digital devices deprive brain of needed downtime”, in The New York Times‎[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-29:
      But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.
    • 2021 March 19, James Fallows, “Can humans be replaced by machines?”, in The New York Times‎[4], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-29:
      ‘We need to use the downtime, when things are calm, to prepare for when things get serious in the decades to come,’ he [Demis Hassabis] has said. ‘The time we have now is valuable, and we need to make use of it.’

Alternative forms[edit]

Translations[edit]

period of time set aside for relaxation and rest — see free time

References[edit]

  1. ^ “downtime, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “downtime, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

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