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  • sit-down
    sit-down
    adjective
    done or accomplished while sitting down.
  • sit down
    sit down
    verb
    to adopt or cause (oneself or another) to adopt a sitting posture
Synonyms

sit-down

American  
[sit-doun] / ˈsɪtˌdaʊn /

adjective

  1. done or accomplished while sitting down.

    sit-down meetings between the two party leaders.

  2. (of a meal or food) served to or intended for persons seated at a table.

    a sit-down dinner.


noun

  • sit-downs
    plural
  1. Informal. a period or instance of sitting, as to relax, talk, or the like.

    They had a profitable sit-down together.

  2. sit-down strike.

  3. a protest demonstration whereby participants refuse to move from a public place.

  4. Informal. a meal, especially a dinner, served to persons who are seated at a table.

sit down British  

verb

  1. to adopt or cause (oneself or another) to adopt a sitting posture

  2. to suffer (insults, etc) without protests or resistance

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. a form of civil disobedience in which demonstrators sit down in a public place as a protest or to draw attention to a cause

  2. See sit-down strike

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. (of a meal, etc) eaten while sitting down at a table

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
sit down Idioms  
  1. Take a seat, as in Won't you sit down? I won't be long . [c. 1200]

  2. 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:

His film—which featured sit-down interviews with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei—had a lukewarm reception when it was released in March, he said.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 13, 2026

"My husband just became the scapegoat," Ritu Pant, 36, told AFP in her first sit-down interview since her husband's arrest in June.

From Barron's Aug. 21, 2026

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

It was never a full-blown, sit-down lecture about relationships.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah

Johnson is pushing instead for Congress to sit down with top AI executives, an idea he said he had raised with Trump.

From Barron's Sep. 14, 2026

She agreed to sit down for an on-camera interview.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 9, 2026

"We're ready to sit down and and strike that deal when the Americans are ready," Carney said.

From BBC Sep. 8, 2026

She would not necessarily sit down with you; chances were good that she had eaten hours earlier, at some time I associated primarily with airport departures and dairy farming.

From Salon Aug. 31, 2026

When I step back out, I sit down next to Alfredo, and he gives me a big smile.

From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar

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

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