How to Use downbeat in a Sentence

downbeat

1 of 2 noun
  • Where is the bar line, where is the downbeat?
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2025
  • In real life, though, the new downbeat normal struck a nerve.
    — Sally Singer, Vogue, 11 Aug. 2023
  • Bowman did a good job in procurement last spring, but the downbeat on the crop was foot speed.
    — Allan Mitchell, New York Times, 10 May 2026
  • Even a second-act nighttime scene in a Parisian downpour is far from downbeat.
    — Ritesh Mehta, IndieWire, 20 May 2025
  • The drums take Bonham-doffing downbeats and turnarounds without remorse, across the huge six-and-a-half-minute song.
    — Anna Tingley, Billboard, 10 Aug. 2017
  • In what seems like downbeat overkill, his sweet old dog’s cancer has spread, forcing him to have the animal euthanized.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 6 Sep. 2025
  • Percussion echoed as jingle dress dancers raised their fans with the downbeat of the drum, sending prayers of healing up to Creator.
    — Jarrette Werk, oregonlive, 16 Sep. 2023
  • Yet so far, that downbeat backdrop hasn’t stopped shopping this year or dragged down the typical kickoff of the holiday season.
    — Melissa Repko,gabrielle Fonrouge, CNBC, 16 Dec. 2025
  • The Kyrie opens with a strong D-major chord in the large orchestra that seems an obvious downbeat but turns out to be an upbeat.
    — Classical Music Critic, Los Angeles Times, 25 Feb. 2026
  • What seems at first like the downbeat eventually dissolves into the track’s spongy matrix of pulses and offbeat accents.
    — Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Over a resonant downbeat, Abel Tesfaye makes good use of his signature falsetto.
    — Raisa Bruner, Time, 2 Feb. 2018
  • Thursday's decline came after the automaker gave downbeat guidance.
    — Sean Conlon,alex Harring, CNBC, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Nothing feels snapped to an arbitrary grid; while the tempo doesn’t vary from bar to bar, what happens in between the downbeats flows as only human playing can.
    — Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 4 June 2026
  • Again and again, a subtle shift of color, a chord exquisitely balanced, a telling hesitation before a pivotal downbeat shed new light on the music.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 31 Jan. 2022
  • These are all part of the remarkably consistent downbeat on radio stations given over to holiday music.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 20 Dec. 2019
  • American consumers in December remained downbeat about the state of the economy, a new survey shows.
    — CBS News, 23 Dec. 2025
  • Here Weiss’ florid pianism, drummer Fludas’ fat downbeats and bassist Vinsel’s sizable tone made for the most vivid statement of the show.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 22 June 2018
  • Friz Freleng gave us a highly theatrical Bugs who seemed to exist on a vaudeville stage, always ready at the drop of a downbeat to fly into song and dance.
    — Will Friedwald, WSJ, 13 Oct. 2020
  • The downbeat news was compounded by weak economic data from China, which dragged down luxury stocks across Europe.
    — Carol Ryan, WSJ, 17 July 2023
  • This is a rare instance of Watts stepping into the spotlight, throwing fills onto the end of nearly every line but never missing the timing of the next downbeat.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 25 Aug. 2021
  • Still, at a time companies are already skittish about going public amid market volatility, the downbeat offering doesn’t give much assurance.
    — Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2025
  • The downbeat for Kapanen is consistency.
    — Allan Mitchell, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2026
  • This move emphasized a strong kick on every downbeat, popularizing the four-to-the-floor rhythmic pattern and laying the foundations for early house and techno.
    — Katie Bain, Billboard, 1 Nov. 2021
  • Surveys suggest that consumers also have turned much more downbeat about the outlook, fueling concern that this pessimism will eventually translate to less spending.
    — Colby Smith, New York Times, 2 May 2025
  • Saturday mornings will feature No Soul Train—a dance show that highlights white people’s blatant disregard for downbeats.
    — Michael Harriot, The Root, 17 July 2017
  • At some point, the film eventually goes through the motions until its inevitable downbeat climax, at which point its dramatic shortcomings become difficult to ignore.
    — Vikram Murthi, IndieWire, 10 Sep. 2025
  • The film’s downbeat ending shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with Denis’ movies, which have always leaned toward tragedy, especially when the action has been set in Africa.
    — Jordan Mintzer, HollywoodReporter, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Heavy on the downbeats, his reading of that season-opening staple was the only weak link on the orchestra’s unusually lively and engaging opening gala on Saturday night.
    — Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2019
  • The mobility and forward direction were commendable, although downbeats sometimes came too automatically when a tiny delay here and there would have given the music more shape.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 9 June 2023
  • Some Ewe rhythms have a slippery, collapsing quality, an amorphous relationship to any easily recognizable downbeat.
    — Finn Cohen, New York Times, 21 Apr. 2017

downbeat

2 of 2 adjective
  • Investors might have been concerned by the downbeat tone of the big banks.
    — Paul R. La Monica, CNN, 13 Jan. 2023
  • But the mood in the room was downbeat and his friends’ questions were full of reproach.
    — Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2021
  • The ratings agency cites three key reasons for the downbeat view.
    — Ed Silverman, STAT, 28 Feb. 2021
  • The performance was more downbeat than others of the night.
    — Rosa Escandon, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Recent surveys have shown that consumers have rarely felt more downbeat about all of these measures.
    — Aziz Sunderji, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2022
  • The steep fall triggered by downbeat results appears to be overdone.
    — Trefis Team, Forbes, 20 Jan. 2022
  • All in all a respectable, but downbeat, start to Venice 2023.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Aug. 2023
  • British businesses, among the world’s worst hit by the coronavirus, were downbeat.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Dec. 2020
  • That this downbeat drama made it into the race at all should serve as the film’s biggest victory.
    — New York Times, 9 Feb. 2022
  • The bank’s downbeat forecast adds to concerns about global weakness.
    — David J. Lynch, Washington Post, 7 June 2022
  • This is the downbeat tone and tenor of the Illinois law and other such laws being drafted.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 5 Jan. 2026
  • But that didn’t seem right to Brandon Perea, who brought a more downbeat, angsty approach to the role.
    — Stuart Miller, Variety, 28 Jan. 2023
  • Commenters remarked that despite the soothing title, the song was an odd choice due to its downbeat lyrics.
    — Pat Saperstein, Variety, 25 Apr. 2022
  • Why is all so downbeat, when Illinois has strengths and assets that other states envy?
    — Jim Nowlan, Chicago Tribune, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Stocks were lower around midday Tuesday, starting the new year on a downbeat note.
    — David Marino-Nachison, WSJ, 3 Jan. 2023
  • Not to start 2022 off on a downbeat, but here’s a close-up of the effects of climate change.
    — Mary Forgione, Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 2022
  • The story is not in itself unusual, nor is the downbeat setting.
    — Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 20 June 2021
  • Amazingly, Saul's approach to its own finale has been much, much more downbeat.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 12 Aug. 2022
  • The other half of the rhythm is the backbeat and kick relationship, or the downbeat and the backbeat.
    — Vulture, 16 Mar. 2022
  • Most of the movies that are struggling at the box office are downbeat, coming at a time when audiences want escape.
    — Brooks Barnes, New York Times, 9 Dec. 2022
  • The physical thing is universal, like, downbeat is always down in every part of the world.
    — Megan Spurrell, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Nov. 2025
  • Wallace's sequel is disturbing in a deeply cerebral way, with a downbeat ending that will knock your socks off.
    — Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 23 Oct. 2023
  • To put it bluntly, Alien can be downbeat material.
    — Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2025
  • Amid a downbeat mood, some analysts focused on the longer-term outlook for Netflix though.
    — Georg Szalai, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Jan. 2022
  • Asked in the same poll about their own feelings, Americans were measurably less downbeat.
    — Karl Vick, Time, 7 Nov. 2022
  • Every conversation is downbeat and desultory; the days seem too hot, too endless to come to a point.
    — Helen Shaw, Vulture, 23 June 2022
  • The recent fall can be attributed to its downbeat Q3 results.
    — Trefis Team, Forbes, 11 Nov. 2021
  • The downbeat outlook suggests there’s limited prospect for a deal that could ease the global energy crunch.
    — Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg.com, 4 Aug. 2022
  • But The Batman moves the goalposts for downbeat superhero thrills.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 10 Mar. 2022
  • In what seems like downbeat overkill, his sweet old dog’s cancer has spread, forcing him to have the animal euthanized.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 6 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'downbeat.' 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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