as in winters
a period of often involuntary inactivity or idleness
a knee operation that could result in months of downtime for the ski racer
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Recent Examples of downtimes
The average response time for phone calls dropped to 6 minutes from 30 minutes in the prior fiscal year; field office wait times decreased to 23 minutes; and removal of online service downtimes has benefited an additional 125,000 users in a single week, according to the agency's findings.
—
Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Aug. 2025
Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for downtimes
Noun
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But plenty of Americans are not just moving toward palm trees and warm winters.—
Larry Clifton,
Sun Sentinel,
28 Apr. 2026
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This interactive project looks at the impact of warmer, shorter winters on regions all over the country, from less ice fishing in Minnesota and fewer ski days in Colorado to drying reservoirs in the Southwest and more ticks and mosquitoes in the Northeast.—
Phaedra Trethan,
USA Today,
27 Apr. 2026
Noun
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That duplication has raised concerns about staff consolidations and widespread newsroom layoffs.—
Meg James,
Los Angeles Times,
1 May 2026
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What wage insurance does is to take the kind of concept which was enacted by Congress in the early ’70s and apply it to a different cause for layoffs, the technological innovation which eliminates work.—
Ethan Baron,
Mercury News,
1 May 2026
Noun
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Without any workplace oversight, the baristas did the obvious, padding their breaks by ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.—
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh,
New Yorker,
26 Apr. 2026
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The breaks kept coming for Orlando.—
Chris Hays,
The Orlando Sentinel,
26 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Not all parts of the country seem to have the same pattern, although the data points to school breaks as relative lulls.—
Meg Wingerter,
Denver Post,
18 Apr. 2026
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The Horned Frogs will have to figure out how to avoid the offensive lulls that have plagued them over the last month, including in the last two rounds of the Big 12 tournament.—
Sabreena Merchant,
New York Times,
29 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Employees restock more frequently and experience fewer interruptions from weekend shoppers, resulting in shelves that tend to stay better organized and fuller.—
Elizabeth Fogarty,
Better Homes & Gardens,
29 Apr. 2026
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These interruptions feel familiar, making the eventual release believable.—
Jason Phillips,
USA Today,
27 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Downtimes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/downtimes. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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