downtime
English edit
Etymology edit
From down (“out of order; out of service; inoperable”) + time.[1]
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈdaʊntaɪm/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈdaʊnˌtaɪm/
- Hyphenation: down‧time
Noun edit
downtime (countable and uncountable, plural downtimes)
- The amount of time lost due to forces beyond one's control, such as the breakdown of machinery or a computer crash.
- 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.
- A period of time when work or other activity is less intense or stops.
- (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
amount of time lost due to forces beyond one’s control
|
period of time when work or other activity is less intense or stops
|
period of time set aside for relaxation and rest — see free time
References edit
- ^ “downtime, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “downtime, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading edit
- downtime on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- “downtime, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.