From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdownwardsdown‧wards /ˈdaʊnwədz $ -wərdz/ ●●○ (also downward) adverb 1 DOWNtowards a lower level or position OPP upwards Nina glanced downwards. Hold out your hands with your palms facing downwards. The body was lying face downwards (=with the front of the body on the floor).2 used when a number or amount becomes smaller OPP upwards The death toll was later revised downwards to 689.3 → from the chairman/president/top etc downwards
Examples from the Corpus
downwards• He too felt the spongy soil drawing him downwards.• The scale on which it registers experience can be adjusted upwards or downwards.• You have already met an example of this in the heat generated when the iron core of a planet separates downwards.• Dougal forced it downwards, as nearly vertically as he could manage.• The risk is that we carry on drifting downwards because there is no real impact on those expectations.• Yellow-brown leaves spun downwards from high branches, and the calm estuary waters could be seen below, from between the trees.• There were grinning gnomes worked into the iron filigree, running downwards helter-skelter.• And everybody knows from the Depratment of transport downwards that it isn't going to work.• We came to a path winding downwards through the trees.face downwards• Place a rubber band over your first and second fingers and hold your right hand facing downwards.• The children place their cards in the pack face downwards.• The refrigerator door was wide open, and he was lying just behind it, slumped face downwards.• Dinosaur shoulder blades had concave sockets facing downwards and backwards.• He was lying face downwards in the shadow of the short diving-board, fully dressed in a blazer and white linen trousers.• I found Goering lying face downwards on his bunk.• The body of a man lay face downwards on the grass.• Lie face downwards, palms on the floor at shoulder level, toes pointed. 