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Synonyms

ups and downs

American  

plural noun

  1. rises and falls of fortune; good and bad times.

    Every business has its ups and downs.


ups and downs British  

plural noun

  1. 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  
  1. 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.

They laughed at the ups and downs of American campus life.

From The Wall Street Journal

With a traditional defined-benefit plan, the employer absorbed the ups and downs of the market.

From MarketWatch

That said, how the funds perform from here, will depend on how volatile the market is and the unique path of ups and downs it takes to get to its final destination.

From Barron's

It's an amazing thing in football and a strange thing that you can be so close with people and spend so much time travelling and going through ups and downs and successes together and you get really close and then one day a transfer happens and that's it, they're gone.

From BBC

She adds that her album was also inspired by a marginalized group that stuck by her side through her ups and downs: the LGBTQ+ community.

From Los Angeles Times