Man Down
Phrase · Slang & Abbreviations
Definitions
A dramatic phrase used when a key person, service, or part of the process is unavailable. In engineering slang, it is half humor and half acknowledgment that capacity or redundancy just got worse.
In plain English: A joking way to say a key person or component is unavailable.
Example: "With the on-call engineer stuck on another incident, the team joked 'man down' and immediately had to decide which alerts could safely wait."