downstream

adverb or adjective

down·​stream ˈdau̇n-ˈstrēm 

1

: in the direction of or nearer to the mouth of a stream

floating downstream

located two miles downstream

2

: in or toward the latter stages of a usually industrial process or the stages (such as marketing) after manufacture

improving profits downstream

downstream products

3

biochemistry : toward the end of a series of cellular processes : following a linked molecular event occurring in a sequence

But by looking downstream of the tumor suppressors [genes] at the proteins they influence, drug developers hope to find good targets.

—Marcia Barinaga

Examples of downstream in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Farmers are drying up acreage and, for about 40 miles downstream of Bend, fish habitats suffer, state scientists told us. — Emily Cureton Cook, ProPublica, 26 June 2026

The frontier model earns its cost when the task actually needs it, such as complex code generation, multistep reasoning, synthesis across long documents and anything where a wrong answer compounds into a bigger problem downstream. — Daniel Steele, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026

When Lake Powell’s levels fall below minimum power pool, that means water can no longer flow through the intake tubes for Glen Canyon Dam‘s hydropower facility, which is the primary method for moving water downstream from the reservoir in southern Utah. — Elise Schmelzer, Denver Post, 21 June 2026

The woman told 911 dispatchers that her vehicle had been inadvertently swept into a creek and was floating downstream at a high rate of speed, according to a news release. — Natassia Paloma, USA Today, 16 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1591, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for downstream

• abeam
• airstream
• bloodstream
• daydream
• esteem
• extreme
• grapheme
• hakim
• hornbeam
• lexeme
• mainstream
• midstream

Kids Definition

downstream

adverb or adjective

down·​stream ˈdau̇n-ˈstrēm 

: in the direction a stream is flowing

Medical Definition

downstream

adverb or adjective

down·​stream ˌdau̇n-ˈstrēm 

1

: in the same direction along a molecule of DNA or RNA as that in which transcription and translation take place and toward the end having a hydroxyl group attached to the position labeled 3′ in the terminal nucleotide

a nucleotide sequence located downstream from the regulatory gene

effects on the expression of downstream genes

compare upstream sense 1

2

: toward the end of a series of cellular processes : following a linked molecular event occurring in a sequence

But by looking downstream of the tumor suppressors [genes] at the proteins they influence, drug developers hope to find good targets.

—Marcia Barinaga, Science

The tyrosine kinase activity of phosphorylated EGFR [epidermal growth factor receptor] in cancer cells results in the phosphorylation of downstream proteins that incite cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and inhibition of apoptosis.

—Jonathan E. Dowell and John D. Minna, The New England Journal of Medicine