down-draught
(ˈdaʊndrɑːft, -dræft)
1. a. A descending draught or current of air.
| 1849 Card. Wiseman Sense v. Sc. Ess. 1853 III. 603 How the north wind should always drive a down-draught..into the drawing-room. 1907 Daily Chron. 25 Oct. 8/5 It was maddening that these harsh down-draughts of the smoke should come to help the enemy. 1961 Manch. Guardian 4 Sept. 1/6 The sports plane was apparently caught by a down-draught. |
b. attrib. or as adj. Designating a furnace, carburettor, etc., employing a downward draught of air or gas.
| 1906 T. Moore Handbk. Pract. Smithing & Forging ii. 6 These down-draught hearths are now being adopted in many of the modern works. 1935 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXIX. 503 A centrifugal fan delivers compressed air to a Stromberg down-draught carburettor. 1959 Chambers's Encycl. VI. 130/2 Intermittent kilns may be of the rectangular or round down-draught type. 1959 Motor Manual (ed. 36) iii. 51 Carburetters may be updraught, horizontal or down-draught, according to the direction in which the main mixture stream is fed into the engine. |
2. a. A down-dragging or depressing influence. Sc.
| c 1788 Picken Twa Rats Misc. Poems (1813) I. 68 (Jam.) We yield To nae downdraught but perfect eild. 1850 A. M'Gilvray Poems 58 Wives, and wives' friends..are..a d―d down-draught, If they be poor. |
b. A ne'er-do-well; a profligate. dial.
| 1835 Aberdeen Shaver Jan. 125 He is..nothing better than a down-draught, or ne'er-do-weel. 1849 C. Brontë Shirley xxii, They were chiefly ‘downdraughts’, bankrupts, men always in debt and often in drink. |
3. The drawing or displacing of water by an object as it sinks.
| 1899 F. T. Bullen Way Navy 24 The down-draught of the anchor had sucked him after it almost to the bottom. |
So down-draw, down-drug. Sc.
| c 1788 Picken Misc. Poems (1813) I. 79 (Jam.) Poortith's sair down-draw. 1814 North. Antiq. 429 (Jam.) Love in our hearts will wax..Thro' crosses and down-drug. |