Toward a lower level, whether in physical space, in a hierarchy, or in amount or value.
His position in society moved ever downward.
The natural disasters put downward pressure on the creditworthiness of the nation’s insurance groups.
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[A] ring the county wears, / That downward hath succeeded in his house / From son to son, some four or five descentsc. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:
They call her Daffadill: / Whoſe preſence as ſhe went along, / The prety flowers did greet, / As though their heads they downward bent, / With homage to her feete.1606?, Michaell Drayton [i.e., Michael Drayton], “The Ninth Eglog”, in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall. […], London: […] R. B[radock] for N[icholas] L[ing] and I[ohn] Flasket, →OCLC; republished in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 4), [Manchester: […] Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1891, →OCLC, page 94:
Novv you muſt bee ſure […] to carry the point or top of the Rod dovvnevvard; by vvhich meanes the ſhadovv of your ſelfe, and Rod too vvill be the leaſt offenſive to the Fiſh, for the ſight of any ſhadovv amazes the fiſh, and ſpoiles your ſport, of vvhich you muſt take a great care.1653, Iz[aak] Wa[lton], chapter IV, in The Compleat Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, […], London: […] T. Maxey for Rich[ard] Marriot, […], →OCLC; reprinted as The Compleat Angler (Homo Ludens; 6), Nieuwkoop, South Holland, Netherlands: Miland Publishers, 1969, →ISBN, page 109:
[T]heir Sight was so directed downward, that they did not readily see Objects that were above them […]1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 71:
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At a lower level.
Dagon his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man / And downward Fish […]1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 462–463:
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Southward.
If we turn to the New World, we find that among the American Indians, from the Eskimo of Alaska downward to Brazil and still farther south, homosexual customs have been very frequently observed.1927, Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, volume 2:
But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar, Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave, Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:
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[…] in the Western Sky, the downward Sun Looks out illustrious from amid the Flush Of broken Clouds […]1728, [James] Thomson, Spring. A Poem, […] A[ndrew] Millar, […]; and G[eorge] Strahan, […], →OCLC, page 12:
Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction […]1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “chapter 28”, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:
[…] Therese saw a downward slant of sadness in her mouth now, a sadness not of wisdom but of defeat.1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 7, in The Price of Salt, Mineola, New York: Dover, published 2015, page 73:
The tractive and braking forces are transmitted to the body through a downward projecting pivot pin in the normal way.1960 December, “The first hundred 25 kV a.c. electric locomotives for B.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 728:
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Located at a lower level.
In her chast Current oft the Goddess laves, And with Celestial Tears augments the Waves. Oft in her Glass the musing Shepherd spies The headlong Mountains and the downward Skies, The watry Landskip of the pendant Woods, And absent Trees that tremble in the Floods;1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 9:
1793, Thomas Taylor (translator), The Phædo in The Cratylus, Phædo, Parmenides and Timæus of Plato, London: Benjamin and John White, p. 235, […] often revolving itself under the earth, [the river] flows into the more downward parts of Tartarus.