downtime

• down time, down-time

down +‎ time

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

downtime (countable and uncountable, plural downtimes)

1. The amount of time lost due to forces beyond one's control, as with a computer crash.

   Coordinate terms: idle time, uptime

   • 2017 March 1, Alex Hern, “How did an Amazon glitch leave people literally in the dark?”, in The Guardian‎:

     A short internet outage might sound like a trifling matter […] but for many, the pervasiveness of the so-called “internet of things” meant downtime at Amazon affected their physical life as well as their digital one.

   • 2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney offers lessons from a legendary life”, in The A.V. Club:

     As the world turns inward, trapped inside in various stages of pandemic quarantine, numerous songwriting luminaries (often blessed with their own in-home studios) have tried to use the downtime creatively—from Millennial stars like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande to longtime veterans like Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.

2. A period of time set aside for rest and relaxation; leisure time.

   I've been working all weekend. I need some downtime.

   • 2010 August 24, Matt Richtel, “Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

   • 2021 March 19, James Fallows, quoting Demis Hassabis, “Can Humans Be Replaced by Machines?”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     “‘We need to use the downtime, when things are calm, to prepare for when things get serious in the decades to come,’ he has said. ‘The time we have now is valuable, and we need to make use of it.’”

• “downtime”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “downtime”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.