downshift

But in this variation on Superbad's wild night of transgression, downshifting the age of the protagonists from teen to tween actually only enhances the stealth, wide-eyed innocence that secretly drives this genre of pre-college hedonism.

He brought the car to a stop before the bridge, downshifted and then put her at the road again in a rising disciplined snarl along the N.6 to Cannes.

In a stick-shift vehicle, the driver must downshift when necessary; in an automatic, the transmission downshifts as needed.