down av DBE ~ adv 1 'towards the north' for sense 1; and cp AND 1 a to go (come) down, 4 a phr down south, O Sup² 27 down along 'in or to the West Country' for comb in sense 3.
   1 1984 POWELL 13-4 Sometimes they would give us potatoes for it that they had brought down from Newfoundland [to Labrador]. 1987 Evening Telegram 9 May, p. 15 [tape transcript] 'Where are you bound Captain Winsor?' 'I'm bound down,' he says, 'to the northern fleet on the Labrador.' 1988 ibid 2 July, p. 14 At a debate some years ago at St Bonaventure's College the expressions 'Down North' and 'Down on the Labrador' were successfully defended. The victor in the debate...argued that: 'Motion to the centre of gravity is downwards...the Earth is flattened at the Poles and expanded at the Equator. So you go down North from the Equator as you go down South from the same location. You go up to the Equator from both Poles.'
   2 [1939] 1989 Evening Telegram 13 Mar, p. 4 Conception Bay is filled with heavy slob ice and yesterday people walked from Bell Island to the mainland. The ice extends down the shore and there is a considerable body off this port. 1979 PORTER 5 From the church all the way down the road, not much of the harbour could be seen. 1985 JOHNSTON 60 On Sundays, once the roads were free of snow, my father took us driving, up the Shore, sometimes, on rainy days, on fine ones down to Sounder's Bay, around the ponds a mile east inland. 1987 O'FLAHERTY 5 Having decided that labour would dull pain, he set about putting a new fence around his property, with the help of a muscular and blessedly taciturn fellow from down the shore.
   3 Comb down the banks, ~ the line: homeward from a logging camp (1985 Terminology of Loggers 6).
   1905 Adelphian ii, p. 127 Mrs Moriarty skinned the poor girl alive... Oh, poor Sara got down the banks and no mistake.

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