from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun Football An act of carrying, receiving, or gaining possession of the ball across the opponent's goal line for a score of six points.
noun The contact, or moment of contact, of a landing aircraft or spacecraft with the landing surface.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun In foot-ball, the touching of the ball to the ground by a player behind his opponent's goal; the play by which this is done.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun (Football) The act of touching the football down behind the opponents' goal; also the score (6 points) resulting from such a play.
noun See under Safety.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun American football, Canadian football A six-point score occurring when the ball enters possession of a team's player in the opponent's end zone. Analogous to a try in rugby.
noun aviation The moment when an aircraft makes first or final contact with the ground during a landing.
noun rugby A try
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
verb come or bring (a plane) to a landing
noun a landing (as the wheels touch the landing field); especially of airplanes
noun a score in American football; being in possession of the ball across the opponents' goal line
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[From the earlier practice of touching the ball to the ground behind the goal line.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
touch + down.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word touchdown.
Examples
"Ending it on a pick returned for a touchdown is an extremely disappointing thing," said Delhomme, who completed 13-of-25 passes for 153 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions.
john commented on the word touchdown
"take off yer bandaid 'cause i don't believe in touchdowns..."
Wilco, I am Trying to Break Your Heart
October 5, 2007