How to Use downshift in a Sentence

downshift

verb
  • You can downshift to slow the car down.
  • Also, there are signs that inflation is poised to downshift in the second half of the year.
    Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 27 July 2022
  • The gearbox is quicker to downshift in Drive and holds onto gears longer.
    Mike Duff, Car and Driver, 19 Aug. 2022
  • Wilson doesn’t see any sign that the North Texas home market will downshift.
    Steve Brown, Dallas News, 7 May 2021
  • The gearbox is easy to downshift quickly on a mountain pass or while bouncing along a dirt road.
    Elana Scherr, Car and Driver, 2 Aug. 2021
  • Left in Drive, the eight-speed short shifts into second gear at around 5900 revs and is slow to respond to downshift requests.
    Scott Oldham, Car and Driver, 25 Sep. 2020
  • There are no turbochargers to spool, no transmissions to downshift, no sweet spot in the powerband to reach.
    Bradley Iger, Ars Technica, 17 Aug. 2022
  • The thinking was that such a slowdown would let the Fed downshift the size of its rate hikes through the end of this year and then potentially hold steady through early 2023.
    Time, 13 Sep. 2022
  • This style has become more of a necessity to unwind and downshift from the hectic flow of life here.
    Joan Morris, The Mercury News, 2 July 2019
  • An outdoor television can help him downshift from work to play mode.
    Jamie Gold, Forbes, 15 June 2021
  • After his run with luxe Huntsville restaurants, Erick is ready to downshift to simpler fare for The Standard.
    Matt Wake | Mwake@al.com, al, 22 Sep. 2021
  • The phones will downshift to Verizon’s 4G network when 5G isn’t available.
    BostonGlobe.com, 19 Nov. 2019
  • Caregivers — many of whom are women — tend to downshift their careers or leave the workforce entirely to take care of loved ones.
    Polina Pompliano, Fortune, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Drivers need to downshift for maximum power, but the torque of second and third gears can be swallowed by hills.
    Scott Sturgis, Philly.com, 28 July 2017
  • Making whiskey has forced Ms. Milam to downshift from the fast pace of the entertainment business.
    Michael Hoinski, New York Times, 24 Feb. 2018
  • Oh, and the chef whose mind never seems to downshift is considering a new dessert for the barbecue restaurant.
    Greg Morago, Houston Chronicle, 12 June 2018
  • There's numbness in the steering, but the gearbox is clever enough to downshift under braking and upshift at redline.
    Tony Quiroga, Car and Driver, 7 Feb. 2022
  • The thinking was that a slowdown in inflation would let the Fed downshift the size of its rate hikes through the end of this year and then potentially hold steady through early 2023.
    CBS News, 13 Sep. 2022
  • Also, hiring has been expected to downshift now that the U.S. has recouped all 22 million jobs lost in the health crisis.
    Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 5 Aug. 2022
  • Others say big businesses will eke out modest gains, but all agree that growth has downshifted sharply from a year ago.
    CBS News, 11 July 2019
  • Wells Fargo expects growth to downshift in the current quarter before the economy contracts in the second half of the year and in early 2024.
    Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 27 Apr. 2023
  • The economy is still stuck in a lackluster pace, and its growth downshifted to 1.4 percent in the first three months of the year from 2.1 percent in last year’s final quarter.
    Stan Choe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 30 June 2017
  • Though the book opens with a bloody foot landing in a passenger’s lap, Newman knows when to downshift to let in some compassion, a resource sorely needed in the air and on the ground.
    Los Angeles Times, 1 July 2021
  • The buzzy and peaky four-cylinder isn't a good match for the eight-speed automatic transmission, which is reluctant to downshift.
    Joey Capparella, Car and Driver, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Your mojo could downshift into slow motion for the rest of the year (perhaps tempering the sizzle of Scorpio season a bit).
    The Astrotwins, ELLE, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Second, the economy appears to be downshifting to a slower rate of growth, which could lead to choppy reports.
    Sharon Nunn, WSJ, 15 Feb. 2019
  • The company has already recalled 1.5 million of the trucks due to a transmission flaw that could cause the vehicles to downshift to first gear with no warning.
    Chris Morris, Fortune, 2 Jan. 2019
  • That means drivers have to downshift twice at the end of the front stretch and once at the end of the back stretch, which could make for a long day in temperatures expected to hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius).
    Dave Skretta, ajc, 4 June 2022
  • Six speeds don't seem like many these days, but the automatic doesn't hesitate to downshift, and its crisp shifts were much preferred to the faux shifts of the competition's CVTs.
    Joe Lorio, Car and Driver, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Stack draws on an element of Monty Python-ish good humor (Simon is, unsurprisingly, a big fan of their comedy) but is able to downshift into brawler mode at any moment.
    Vulture, 29 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'downshift.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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