to go down, descend, and (when force is applied) to sink in, press down, or bring low.
This is a rare, mostly poetic verb for downward motion. Where the common, everyday verb for going down is יָרַד, this word tends to appear when the going down is forceful or vivid: an arrow driving into the body, a hand bearing down on a sufferer, an enemy coming down to attack, the dead sinking into the grave.
The same core idea works in two directions. Something goes down on its own, as when a person descends to the grave or a sharp rebuke sinks deep into a wise mind. Or someone drives something down, as when a hand presses hard on a sufferer, rain settles the ridges of a plowed field, or strong arms bend a bow of bronze. Whether the movement happens by itself or is forced, the picture is always of reaching a lower place.
Because its forms look almost identical to another Hebrew verb meaning "to be shattered" or "to be dismayed," several of its lines can be read more than one way, and translations sometimes disagree over whether a verse pictures going down or being broken.