Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see sense 1 above.

(US black) a general term of approval.

2003

Ja Rule ‘Down Ass Bitch’ 🎵 on Pain Is Love [album] Every thug needs a lady / Baby I’m convinced, you my down ass bitch.

(US) to attack verbally, to slander.

1982

W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 53: ‘To downmouth’ a blend of ‘bad-mouth’ (to derogate) or ‘poor mouth’ (to feign poverty) with ‘down-in-the-mouth’ (depressed) and ‘downplay’ (cable-ese for ‘play down’ [...]) with a soupcon of ‘downside risk’.

(US black/campus) used when referring to a situation one does not particularly like, e.g. I ain’t down with this idea!

1988		Penn State U. Sl. Dict. 🌐 ain’t down with use when referring to a situation you don’t particularly like. example: ‘I ain’t down with this idea!’.
2002		Promoguy.net 14 May 🌐 I ain’t down with PHP. But I know a lot of you are. And one day, I hope to be also. I mean, I can set up and configure pre-fab code, but when it comes to ‘rolling my own’ I am clueless.

very well aware.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 237: down as a hammer; down as a trippet: These are merely emphatical phrases, used out of flash, to signify being down, leary, fly, or awake to any matter, meaning, or design.
1818		W. Perry London Guide 157: No sooner was he up to their message, than a shrill whistle raised the attention olf his companions [...] they were down as a nailin five seconds.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 44: Loud cheering at this speech of JOEY’S – / Who, as the dilettanti know, is / [...] Down as a hammer to the Arts!
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 315: ‘Down as a hammer, or Down as a nail,’ continued Sparkle, ‘are cant or slang terms made use of among gamblers, and are synonimous [sic] with being up.
1839		(con. 1703) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1840) 170: ‘Awake! to be sure I am, my flash cove,’ replied Sheppard; ‘I’m down as a hammer.’.

1. expert, professional (within one’s occupation).

1983		World’s Famous Supreme Team ‘Hey DJ’ 🎵 One thing’s for sure – you’re down by law.
1988		Ice-T ‘Radio Suckers’ 🎵 Understand what I’m sayin’, they’re down by law!
1998		Source Nov. 64: Down by law with President Bill Clinton during his first term, George Stephanopoulos [...] now comments on Washington’s movers and shakers.
2002		Cypress Hill Sl. Gloss. 🌐 down by law: to be gifted.

2. describing a wholly admirable person, object or idea.

2002

‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 158: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Keep it real. Keep hope alive. Keep keepin on. Down by law.

(US black) loyal to, committed to, in favour of.

1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 104: I nodded to Louie, and he came up to me like he was down for whatever I was down for.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 71: Myself, I’m down for the action anytime.
1989		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 3: down for – agreeable to.
1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 23: He’s a bust; he ain’t down for his hood.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 32: Damn, he thought, there’s nobody down for me.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 53: I can’t do all that fuckery where I’m linking next gyal and lotioning them. calling them babe, while I’ve also got my wifey who’s down for me.

(orig. US black) able to look after oneself.

1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 19: down for mine [...] ‘If you want to get bad, I’m down for mine’.
1995		KAM ‘Down Fa Mine’ 🎵 on Made in America [album] You shouldn’t speak with a weak heart / You gots to finish everything you start / That’s why I’m down for mine.

(US black) fully aware, completely knowledgeable.

1971

H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: down on the case fully aware of all of the aspects of a situation and taking necessary action.

1. attacking physically.

1815		(con. 18C) W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 149: I think we should be down upon the fellow, one of these darkmans, and let him get it well.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 278: You dare so much as open your jaws [...] and he’ll be down on yer – certain.

2. annoyed with, disappointed in, holding a negative opinion of.

1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. II v: Look here, ladies and gentlemen – don’t be down on me ’cause I’m goin’ to leave you.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 5 Mar. n.p.: It has seldom been our province to be ‘down’ upon an offence more flagitious.
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 59: You are positively down upon her to too great an extent.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 24: That’s a kind of business I’ve no desire ter be in, ’cos it involves the starvin’ principle, an’ I’m down on that!
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 118: Vice-Chancellor somebody will be down upon me some day as a ‘contributory,’ I suppose.
1864		J.F. Brobst letter in Brobst Well Mary, Civil War Letters 90: They are down on Sherman because he makes them skedaddle for the south.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 43/1: Perhaps if you had to go through a little of what I have suffered, you wouldn’t be quite so ready to be down on me.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 167: Let him only find out a man in some artful little game, and he would be ‘down on’ him and hunt his life out almost.
1886		M.E. Kennard Girl in the Brown Habit III 95: ‘You are awfully down upon me,’ he stammered.
1887		Wkly Irish Times 5 Feb. 1/4: American Wit and Humour [...] She was down on slang.
1888		‘Jack the Ripper’ letter Sept. to ed. of Central News Agency in Evans & Skinner Jack the Ripper (2001) 16-17: Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won’t fix me just yet. [...] I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 16 Nov. 2/2: He is down on dead-beats and dead-heads, and I don't blame him.
1890		Sporting Times 22 Feb. 2/3: When the French law is down on a man, it gives him biff; there is no forty bob or seven days, but forty bob and seven days.
1899		H. Garland Boy Life on the Prairie 141: He’ll come back with his gang. They’re down on us country boys.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 2 Mar. 360: I should have had my old mate [...] ‘down on me’ had I taken the boys away boating before the morning’s work was done.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 97: It’s no fun to get a preacher down on you. One of ’em can throw stones enough to smash every window in Tammany Hall.
1910		O. Johnson Varmint 36: You’ve got the whole darn house down on you already.
1915		J. Buchan Thirty-Nine Steps (1930) 72: Those perishers are all down on a poor man.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 600: A thing good Mrs Grundy as the law stands was terribly down on.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 85: If ’e thought you was shirkin’ it, the Cap’n would be down on you.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 96: I believe you are kinda down on people.
1940		F. Sargeson ‘They Gave Her a Rise’ in A Man And His Wife (1944) 19: I’m a Doolan myself, and Mrs. Bowman was always down on the churches.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 20: It’s why they’re down on us, we interrupt their careers.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 54: Got the whole town down on him but good and wound up in jail.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 221: Fortunately not all people are down on villains.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 42: Everyone down on the pusher.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 48: He had, for most of their time together, been down on Fran for her drugging.

aware, knowledgeable.

1802		M. & R. Lovell Edgeworth Essays on Irish Bulls 138: Why, I was down upon him.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 316: ‘Why, your honour, only because you see as how I was up to him.’—’How do you mean, what is being up to him?’—‘Why, bless your heart, I was down upon him and had him bang’.
1832		J. Miller Complete Jest Book 261: Stagging, my lord; why don’t you see I was down upon him.

1. through with.

1944

Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 254: down with it (adj.): through with it.

2. involved with, agreeable to.

1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 15: I’m down with the action to my own satisfaction.
1955		Down Beat 5 Oct. 51: I don’t know who the singer is, ’cause I’m not down with all the singers now.
1960		Beat Jokes Bop Humor and Cool Cartoons 57: The Ham wasn’t down with the action.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 118: You kin tell d’ dude righteously down with the pimp hustle just be lookin’ at what he do. Don’t need to talk ’bout it, he doin’ it!
1995		(con. 1985–90) P. Bourjois In Search of Respect 208: So they be gin’ upstairs with a girl, and of course they already knew that I’m not going to be down with it.
2000		Observer Rev. 7 May 10: Just because I’m down with the struggle, that don’t mean that I can’t have a social life.
2011		W.D. Myers Cruisers: Checkmate 26: ‘[I]f the rest of you guys are down with it, I’d sure like to try’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 69: These guys was disrespectfully cutting Black people and cutting Latino people that’s not down with them.

3. empathetic, emotionally responsive; enjoying, appreciating.

1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 18: I’m with the issue and down with the action.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 113: I dig. I’m down with it.
1972		‘Adam and Eve’ in Milner & Milner (1972) 293: Man, like you with it, you right down with it. He was a stone trick, you know.
1987		Ice-T ‘Rhyme Pays’ 🎵 But you’re down with me. You know god gifted me / Black kids say I’m trech, white kids say I’m nifty.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 155: He was an unlikely cokehead, but he had a mission to be down with whatever was going on.
2001		Source Aug. 100: He’s just a down brother; he’s down with helping brothers.
2004		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 70: I’m down with any faith that’s into bitchin’ pastry.

4. (US) friendly with.

1974		H.L. Foster Playin’ the Dozens 131: The next day, when asked what he meant by ‘down with,’ he responded, ‘You know, the guys they drink with, smoke pot with’.
1990		N. George ‘Forty Acres and an Empire’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 109: Ex-Citibanker Pedro Barry, who left his corporate gig to be down with Spike.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 128: Hey, O.G. Why didn’t you tell me you was down with Kansas? Me and that old boy go back a little ways.

to be aware of the situation, to know what is going on.

1885		Maitland Mercury (Aus./NSW) 31 Mar. 2: ‘Inform on you? I see.’ ‘Now you’ve got the racket down fine’.
1918		R. Lardner Treat ’Em Rough 84: I put in a week on it [i.e. learning French] and I figure I have got it down good enough so as I can get by.
1966		(con. 1958) R. Farina Been Down So Long (1972) 47: Man, he had it all down.
1978		L.K. Truscott IV Dress Gray (1979) 267: You’ve got quibbling fuckin’ down, is that it, Hand?
1985		G. Tate ‘Atomic Dog’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 33: I saw a Japanese chick singing, sounded like Sarah Vaughan. This girl couldn’t speak English too tough, but when she sang she had Sarah Vaughan down.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 35: I would have three days to learn the job [...] ‘I’ll have it down in a day,’ I told Gary.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 22: That was the bomb [...] You sounding like you got that gangsta shit down.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 53: He’s got Roman geography down.

(UK/US Und., to convey information to someone, to explain, to make someone aware; thus UK Und.) put a swell down, to alert one’s target (typically the target of a pickpocket) that one is about to rob them.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 236: to put a person down to any thing, is to apprize him of; elucidate, or explain it to him; to put a swell down, signifies to alarm or put a gentleman on his guard, when in the attempt to pick his pocket, you fail to effect it at once, and by having touched him a little too roughly, you cause him to suspect your design, and to use precautions accordingly; or perhaps, in the act of sounding him, by being too precipitate or incautious, his suspicions may have been excited, and it is then said that you have put him down, put him fly, or spoiled him.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 212: put down a story, v. – to tell one’s side of a story first.
1981		McKee & Chisenhall Beale Black & Blue 147: ‘The sheriff told us that if we didn’t get out of town, why, he was going to throw us in jail, on account of all that phony stuff [i.e. selling patent medicines] we put down’.