> as lemmas

1610 J. Boys Expos. Dominical Epist. & Gospels 292 Men go sooner downe hil, then vp hill.

1656 W. Blake Trial of Ladies 29 A man may easily pull a man down hill, or down to Hell, but he can hardly pluck him up to Heaven.

1711 S. H. Do No Right ii. ii. 45 That he may not be suspected, he'll play sometimes upon the Square, and lose considerably; but he'll soon recover it when he thinks he has gone down-hill far enough.

1786 R. Burns Poems 24 But oil'd by thee, The wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin, Wi' rattlin glee.

1795 Ld. Auckland Let. 6 Sept. in Jrnl. & Corr. (1862) III. 313 It is evident that they are going downhill, as we say, and that a well-concerted opposition will end the business.

1834 W. A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. II. 54 We seem still to be placed like our primitive parents, with the tree of life before us—the devil leading us one way, down-hill, and reason the other way, upward.

1874 N. Amer. Rev. Oct. 321 As he views matters, we have been steadily going down hill, in the article of our mother-tongue.

1900 49th Ann. Rep. Indiana State Board Agric. 1899–1900 373 [The pig] is fed more so he will not go down hill at a time he should be growing out of pighood into hoghood.

1949 Long Beach (Calif.) Independent 28 Aug. 14/1 It starts a vicious circle of deflation that can spiral downhill much faster than inflation spiraled uphill.

2003 N.Y. Times 20 July ix. 6/4 Ms. Couric introduced her guest as a ‘right-wing telebimbo’, and things went downhill from there.