sit-down
adjective
done or accomplished while sitting down.
sit-down
American
[sit-doun]
/ ˈsɪtˌdaʊn /
adjective
-
done or accomplished while sitting down.
sit-down meetings between the two party leaders.
-
(of a meal or food) served to or intended for persons seated at a table.
a sit-down dinner.
noun
-
sit-downs
plural
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Informal. a period or instance of sitting, as to relax, talk, or the like.
They had a profitable sit-down together.
-
a protest demonstration whereby participants refuse to move from a public place.
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Informal. a meal, especially a dinner, served to persons who are seated at a table.
sit down
British
verb
-
to adopt or cause (oneself or another) to adopt a sitting posture
-
to suffer (insults, etc) without protests or resistance
noun
-
a form of civil disobedience in which demonstrators sit down in a public place as a protest or to draw attention to a cause
-
See sit-down strike
adjective
sit down
Idioms
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Take a seat, as in Won't you sit down? I won't be long . [c. 1200]
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sit down to . Prepare to eat a meal, as in At six we all sat down to dinner . [Late 1500s]
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sit-down
First recorded in 1830–40; adj. and noun use of verb phrase sit down
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Chili’s newest chicken-sandwich offerings appear to be a winner as more sit-down restaurants try to directly compete with fast-food chains.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
“I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers,” Trump said in a nearly hourlong sit-down interview with Punchbowl News released Friday.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
But this tour felt like his first "real piece", he told the BBC in a sit-down interview the day after the show.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Pizza chains once owned a reliable American ritual: a sit-down dinner under a red-roofed Pizza Hut or a predictable Domino’s delivery on a lazy TV night.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
Once again I found my calm, steady voice and brought our demands to Cecile at our next sit-down dinner.
From "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia
I take that information and sit down with two investors.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
“They’re competing with coffee houses. They’re competing with thrift stores. They’re competing with a local park where you can just go sit down and talk to your friends.”
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
"They have to talk, but they have to make sure that when they sit down and talk, it's not just a lot of people just filling the air."
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
I’m terrible at it, so I have to dedicate my Monday to sit down and do the calendar.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
But before we can sit down, Marcy shouts: “I get to sit next to her. Me!”
From "The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman" by Gennifer Choldenko
The three men started talking about how to combine the more academic sit-downs with the looser park sessions Colleton had been hosting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
Planned for this week are solo sit-downs with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the panel of “The View.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2024
“Win the nomination, pick your nominee, lay out your economic plan, do your convention and now do some sit-downs and amplify that.”
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2024
She mentioned one of his big legacy-media sit-downs, an interview with George Stephanopoulos, seemingly just to establish that Bankman-Fried was making the rounds and talking a lot.
From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2023
I could escape the stage-managed multilateral meetings and sit-downs with leaders and find new ways to bring a little extra warmth to those otherwise staid visits.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
