drill down

verb

drilled down; drilling down; drills down

transitive + intransitive

: to thoroughly consider or analyze : examine

Although drilling down into all of the complications of the 2007 to 2009 economic and financial crisis is a task requiring more verbosity than a column permits, a quick rundown for context is worthwhile.

—M. Ray Perryman

But we don't have much data that drills down on the voting preferences of people in specific jobs, to distinguish between, say, dishwashers and factory workers.

—Irv Randolph

Matches are based on a lengthy questionnaire that drills down the specifics of your dating preferences and personality.

—Dorothy Pitti

Examples of drill down in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

So, what the council's going to do is consider those points and drill down and ask our police department about those issues. — Matthew Rodriguez, CBS News, 14 July 2026

The ampd YouTube dashboard lets clients drill down from a national overview to a single channel, splitting any metric by age, gender, income and region, and switching the view between reach, hours watched and individual titles. — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 30 June 2026

At Versace, the CEO focused on steering a turnaround via strengthening the brand’s core categories (womenswear and menswear) by drilling down on house codes, with a keen focus on accessories and footwear. — Madeleine Schulz, Vogue, 24 June 2026

The combination – the buzzwords drilled down by a drill sergeant – coalesced into a team that was as mentally tough as it was talented. — Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 15 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1996, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for drill down

• adown
• blowdown
• breakdown
• countdown
• crackdown
• crosstown
• downtown
• drawdown
• dropdown
• facedown
• godown
• hometown