lowdown

• low-down

Compound adjective of low +‎ down in the sense of "humble" recorded in the 1540s, in the sense of "vulgar, far down the social scale" in 1888. Recorded as a noun in 1915 in the slang sense of secret or inside information.

lowdown (uncountable)

1. inside information, the story or truth.

   Synonyms: scoop, dirt, dope, straight dope, poop

   All the reporters hoped to be the first to get the lowdown on the celebrity's marriage plans.

   here's the lowdown

   to give somebody the lowdown

   • 1985, “Can’t Get There From Here”, in Fables of the Reconstruction, performed by R.E.M.:

     Lawyer Jeff, he knows the low-down / It’s mighty bad to visit home

2. A lowlife, a despicable person.

lowdown (comparative more lowdown, superlative most lowdown)

1. Unfair; scoundrelly; shameful.

   lowdown tactics

2. seedy, sketchy, disreputable
   • 1988 August 20, Chris Reed, “The English 'Strip-tique'”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 6, page 11:

     So there I was, in the front row of course (it was my reportorial duty), with a bunch of gay men and straight women. And we're all involved in a lowdown — but eminently "Safe" — celebration of the erotic possibilities of the male body.

   • 1994, Ivan Webster, The Cares of the Day, University of Alabama Press, →ISBN, page 28:

     Some kinda way, he talked Aunt Fanny into running off with him that night. When they got as far as Kansas City, he was through with her. They stayed in some lowdown kinda hotel in the colored section there', and after that they were headed God knows where.

3. down low; purporting to be heterosexual while engaged in sex with men.

• down low, down-low, downlow