calm down

Both

Sense-dependent: some meanings take an object and split, others take none. Check the sense you mean.

How to say it

Stress the particle, not the verb: calm DOWN. Saying “CALM down” is the clearest learner tell — the verb stays light and the particle carries the beat.

No pause between the words. /m/ runs straight into /d/ — “calm down” is one rhythmic unit with a single stressed beat on the particle.

What it means

To become less angry or agitated, or to make someone less so.
- “Calm down and tell me what actually happened.”
- “It took twenty minutes to calm him down.”
Similar: settle down, cool off

The particle logic

down

Something decreases, collapses, settles, or gets recorded.

Listen + practice

Hear “calm down” spoken naturally

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Read the sentence aloud. Keep the stress on the particle and run the two words together — we’ll score every sound and flag what to work on.

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calm down — meaning, examples & how to say it