Word
download
Phoneticsdown·load
US/ˈdaʊnˌɫoʊd/
UK/dˈaʊnləʊd/
Definitions
02to transfer government responsibility
v. to pass a job or cost from a high level of government to a lower one.
v. to transfer jurisdiction, financial responsibility, or service delivery from a federal or provincial government to a municipal one.
“The province decided to download the cost of road repairs to the local city council.”
“Critics argued that the federal government was simply downloading its deficit onto the provinces by cutting social transfer payments.”
Dialect · Formal
Teaching tip
This sense is specific to Canadian English and is almost always used in the context of political or financial policy.
03a transferred file
n. a file that you have moved or are moving from the internet to your device.
n. a file or piece of data that has been or is intended to be transferred from a remote system.
“Your download will be finished in about two minutes.”
“The website provides a digital download of the manual in several different languages.”
Etymology
From down- + load. Verbal form first appears c. 1962 in the Wichita Falls (Texas) Times. Nominal form first appears c. 1977 in Scientific American.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/download