Preposition: about

• prospect: Significantly, none of the manufacturers interviewed were downbeat about prospects.

Converse of object

• give: It's seven o'clock sharp and the conductor gives the downbeat for the brass band to begin.

• call: The absences that you've been training yourself to recognize fall on the rhythmic counterparts of the backbeats, called the downbeats.

Modifies a noun

• ending: They wanted to revoke the director's final cut privileges and insert a happier ending instead of Gilliam's decidedly downbeat ending.

• conclusion: Congrats to Bido for following his refreshingly bleak premise to a fatal, downbeat conclusion!

• tone: Picture: The downbeat, depressing tone of the series is reflected in the feel of the ' Black Books ' bookstore.

• song: The first CD leans more toward the cynical, more downbeat songs, which was partly my original aim.

• note: A rather downbeat note on which to end a novel.

• view: The management, in turn, are likely to give a downbeat view of future business prospects.

Modifying Another Word

• somewhat: The bouncy, uplifting feel of the music for this song belies the somewhat downbeat lyrical content.

• rather: Despite its rather downbeat image AA caters for all classes of society.

• too: He concluded, however, that they were just too downbeat to be of any practical use.

• very: Most of the tracks have a blues feeling to them each very downbeat.

• decidedly: But things look decidedly downbeat if you are a signal engineer with a mission to put right the degradation.

• surprisingly: But it was a surprisingly downbeat evening, rather than a celebratory one.

Used with adjective complement

• sound: It may sound downbeat, but judging from the sample chapter nothing is further from the truth.

• look: Interviews over, Sergeant reflects that Prescott is looking very downbeat for a winner.