stand-down

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   An order or period when people who were ready for action are told they can relax, because the danger has passed.

   Grammar: Often follows give or receive: the order was a stand-down.

   Patterns

   • a stand-down order
   • give the stand-down

   The captain issued a stand-down after the alert proved to be a false alarm.

   Troops welcomed the stand-down and returned to their barracks.

   After the stand-down, the firefighters finally ate dinner.

2. 2nouncountableAustralian

   A temporary pause in a person's employment, often without pay, usually because there is no work.

   Grammar: Common in Australian and New Zealand workplaces.

   Patterns

   • a stand-down period
   • stand-down without pay

   The factory announced a two-week stand-down while it waited for parts.

   Workers faced an unpaid stand-down when the mine closed.

   The union negotiated the terms of the stand-down.

3. 3nouncountablebusiness

   A planned pause in normal activity, such as a safety review, in which an organization stops work to check how it operates.

   Grammar: Used in safety and aviation contexts.

   Patterns

   • a safety stand-down

   The airline held a safety stand-down after the accident.

   The whole department took part in a one-day stand-down to review procedures.

   A stand-down was called so that managers could talk about the incident.

Word forms

Common combinations

a stand-down order

The commander gave a stand-down order at midnight.

a safety stand-down

The company held a safety stand-down after the injury.

call a stand-down

Officials called a stand-down once the threat was over.

a stand-down period

The stand-down period lasted ten days.

an unpaid stand-down

Staff faced an unpaid stand-down over the holidays.

Synonyms and how they differ

stand-off

A stand-off is a tense deadlock between two sides and has the opposite feeling of a stand-down.

stop-work

Stop-work is used for an order to cease work, but it is purely about halting and does not suggest a danger has ended.

all-clear

All-clear is the signal that danger has passed, and it names the message rather than the relaxing of readiness.

layoff

A layoff usually ends a person's job or pauses it for a long time, while a stand-down is a short pause.

Opposites

Word family

stand down verb

to leave a position or end a state of readiness

stand-by noun

a state of being ready to act

stand-to noun

a military state of readiness at dawn or dusk

Commonly confused: stand-down or stand-off?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “stand-down”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

Explore more words