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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If your area experiences cold winters, bring them indoors in autumn, either emptied of their annuals, cleaned and stored, or still housing tropicals, evergreens or herbs, and treat them as houseplants over winter.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
7 Apr. 2026
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In wet winters, the valleys beyond town awaken in color as sand verbena, desert sunflower, evening primrose and pincushion gather in brief, luminous blooms across the desert floor.—
Josh Jackson,
Los Angeles Times,
7 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Yuga Labs has gone through several rounds of layoffs, and is hardly the darling of the tech world anymore, which has moved on to AI startups.—
Harrison Jacobs,
ARTnews.com,
10 Apr. 2026
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The publication was again paused in the fall due to the government shutdown and layoffs of MMWR staff, which were later reversed.—
Aria Bendix,
NBC news,
10 Apr. 2026
Noun
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When the news breaks of faraway civilian casualties — an erroneous air strike on a school that relied on outdated intelligence, for example — the mind takes refuge in abstractions and statistics.—
Theater Critic,
Los Angeles Times,
11 Apr. 2026
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By the Sea also deducted pay for meal breaks even if the workers didn’t take a meal break.—
David J. Neal,
Miami Herald,
9 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Referring to the decline in permits approved, ECMC Director Julie Murphy said there were lulls as everyone adjusted course.—
Judith Kohler,
Denver Post,
18 Mar. 2026
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Acting in a movie involves a lot of waiting around, too—as the crew repositions cameras and adjusts the lighting, among other things—and those lulls provided me with plenty of time to feel queasy with anxiety.—
Naomi Fry,
New Yorker,
14 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Lawmakers say the funding ensures the 460,000 public employees, retirees and dependents who access health care through the Group Insurance Commission (GIC) face no interruptions to their coverage.—
Tim Dunn,
Boston Herald,
7 Apr. 2026
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Experts attribute the interruptions to supply chain disruptions and a surge in demand, tied in part to panic buying.—
April 2,
CBS News,
2 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Downtimes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/downtimes. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.
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