drill down

verb

drilled down; drilling down; drills down

transitive + intransitive

: to thoroughly consider or analyze : examine

If you drill down into his platform, it's mostly the same stuff Democrats support, but more of it …

—Jonathan Chait

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 the idea is that users will drill down deeper into things, spurred on by the introduction made by the AI tool. —John Werner, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025

Palmer, a historian at the University of Chicago, has no such Spenglerian horizons but instead drills down into the lives of her favorite subjects—which include herself. —Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 28 July 2025

But drill down another level and the challenges facing the legacy networks are grim indeed. —Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 11 July 2025

While this work was underway, scientists used the opportunity to drill down and extract a core sample to learn more about the region’s geology. —Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 July 2025

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