In business or organizational hierarchies, the people or positions directly under or subordinate to a given position; those who report to a supervisor.
Compound of 'down' (indicating subordination or lower rank) and 'line' (from Old English 'līne', meaning a sequence or row), used in modern business terminology.
Modern business terminology borrowed from spatial metaphors—'downline' means lower rank, 'upline' means higher rank—showing how humans map abstract hierarchies onto physical directions!
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