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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

set down en · VERB

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To write.
    • I set down this account so others may benefit from my experience.
    • Some rules were to be set down for the government of the army. 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the [Sheldonian] Theater:
  2. (transitive) To fix; to establish; to ordain.
    • This law we may name eternal, being that order which God […] hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by. [1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page):
  3. (UK, especially, transitive) To place, especially on the ground or a surface; to cease carrying; to deposit; to allow passengers to alight.
    • They rowed about a League; and then ſet me down on a Strand. 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Sets out as Captain of a Ship. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 159:
  4. (ambitransitive) To land.
    • The bush pilot set down on a sandbar.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To humiliate.
    • "To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them feel small! Surely that’s the lifework of a hero?" 1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 131:
    • “I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin de Paris,’ in which there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell, who had seduced a working girl, who at the end———” 1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter XIV, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part II, pages 239–240:
  6. (transitive) To regard (someone) in a particular way; to put down as.
    • I set him down as an idiot.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
sets down Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
set down Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
set down Tense=Past lexicographic
setting down Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic

Synonyms

drop off (deposit)

Translations (17)

de absetzen (to place on a surface) · yi אַוועקלייגן (to place on a surface) · grc κατατίθημι (to place on a surface) · gl pousar (to place on a surface) · it deporre (to place on a surface) · dsb sajźaś (to place on a surface) · es posar (to place on a surface) · de ablegen (to place on a surface) · ga scaoil anuas (to place on a surface) · de hinlegen (to place on a surface) · dsb sajźiś (to place on a surface) · it posare (to place on a surface) · de hinsetzen (to place on a surface) · fr déposer (to place on a surface) · ht depoze (to place on a surface) · fi laskea (to place on a surface) · pt pousar (to place on a surface)