strike down

English

Pronunciation

Audio (US): (file)

Verb

strike down (third-person singular simple present strikes down, present participle striking down, simple past struck down, past participle struck down or stricken down)

To kill (someone or something); to cause to die suddenly.
God will strike you down!

May the Lord strike down those sinners!
- 1977, George Lucas, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope:
  Darth Vader: Your powers are weak old man.
  Obi-Wan Kenobi: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
- 1994, Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction:
  And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
To knock down.
- 1962 March, “The New Year Freeze-up on British Railways”, in Modern Railways, page 158:
  Throughout the country there were: rupture of telecommunications, resulting amongst other things from telegraph wires and posts overweighted by snow or struck down by gales; [...].
- 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Reading (1840)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 56:
  He was perched up top attending to the roof lantern when he was stuck down (literally) by a storm of "preposterous fury" (Bizarre Berkshire, D. Mackay 2011).
To prostrate by illness.
(law) To invalidate (a law, statute etc.)
Antonym: uphold
- 2004 October 29, Peter Wong, “Interracial-marriage ban used in Measure 36 comparisons”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A:
  Later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriages remaining in 16 states, all in the old Confederacy and border states.

Related terms

Translations

(law) To invalidate (a law, statute etc.)

Anagrams

downstrike