ups and downs

American

plural noun

rises and falls of fortune; good and bad times.

Every business has its ups and downs.

ups and downs British

plural noun

alternating periods of good and bad fortune, high and low spirits, etc

"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

ups and downs Idioms

Good times and bad times, successes and failures, as in We've had our ups and downs but things are going fairly well now. This term was first recorded in 1659.

Etymology

Origin of ups and downs

First recorded in 1650–60

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:

ups and downs

Even stocks sensitive to the economy’s ups and downs, including those that typically suffer when the Fed hikes rates, rose on Thursday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

Oracle’s stock has been known to move in step with the ups and downs of OpenAI’s news cycle — and that drove it to its fifth straight drop on Tuesday.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026

This added to the ups and downs in the gilt markets - the trade in British government debt.

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026

Epoch-making, however, is a work in progress, with its ups and downs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026

He didn’t have the stomach for the constant ups and downs that never let a man truly know where he stood.

From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023