downbeat

Related to downbeat: downbeat nystagmus

downbeat

Glum or pessimistic. Michael used to be a cheery kid, but he been pretty downbeat lately.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

downbeat

mod. cool; easygoing. (Compare this with upbeat.) He is sort of a downbeat character—no stress.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • on one's
  • on someone's
  • pillow-biter
  • #dead
  • (Have you) been OK?
  • (something) blows
  • (as) gay as a three-dollar bill
  • out of one's
  • (I've) got to go
  • save someone's skin
References in periodicals archive
* i3 Verticals, Inc.(NASDAQ: IIIV) fell 13.5% to $24.85 following downbeat Q3 earnings.
Those working in construction were found to be the most downbeat.
The UAE's biggest bank is downbeat on the immediate prospects for the global economy -- fearing that many of the globe's biggest economies will face new difficulties in the months ahead.
The report, which is published in an appendix of Moody's closely-watched Sovereign Risk report, ranks Slovakia, Estonia, Poland and Hungary towards the middle of the table - less miserable than the UK, US and crisis-ridden Greece but more downbeat than the Bulgaria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, central Europe's most upbeat performer.
A new study suggests that the brains of 2- to 3-day-old babies recognize when a rhythmic sequence lacks its initial beat, or downbeat. The downbeat corresponds to the downstroke of a conductor's baton at the beginning of a musical measure.
A bullish Victor Piturca said yesterday: "Romania has qualified and is capable of beating anyone," before adding the downbeat caveat: "We have to be afraid of all matches."
Similarly, the poll showed a downbeat assessment and forecast for the economy in the Hokuriku region on the Sea of Japan coast that was hit by a powerful earthquake in late March.
"Her movement suits me because I have a big downbeat."
Relaying the sexy but ultimately downbeat story of two amorous college boys whose love for each other is threatened when one of them strays, Broken Sky is a film of few words.
Downbeat: Incomprehensible hysterical gesture by the conductor (see also "cue").
If the black paintings of Rothko belong to the sacred spaces of Baroque melancholy, then the black paintings of Frank Stella confront the promise of utopian abstraction and the grand subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism with deadpan means and a mournful thematics of downbeat urbanism and historical foreboding.
On the downbeat side, the much-publicized problems with the domestic auto industry--General Motors, Daimler Chrysler and Ford--have cast a bit of a pall on the market.
WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY, The Venue, Edinburgh, September 6 LED by the massive bulk of singer Robert Fisher, this alternative country collective created a dreamy and downbeat vibe.
Weyant strummed the opening bars to our one original song "Toilet Paper the Trees." I came in hard on a downbeat, picking up the tempo so that Jackie was completely thrown off and couldn't find her cue.
What a downbeat primer: Based on the Ira Levin novel, the plot revolved around Josef Mengele, then the most notorious at-large war criminal from World War II, and an attempt to create a Fourth Reich by genetically engineering a new Hitler.