For someone of higher rank, power, status, and position to engage someone of much lesser and/or inferior rank, status, power, and position in debate and/or argument. Not limited to just status, power, position, and rank but can and often do include intellect, capability, competence, and acumen.
Oprah Winfrey didn't dignify Donald Trump's attack on her with a response because she doesn't believe in punching down.
How can I be punching down when you think the people I'm talking about are better than me? You are trying to turn this into a popularity contest because you know that I will lose and you are generalizing and decontextualizing everything I say.
A fucking retard "Uh, I don't like bullies, uuuuh... I'm definitely not doing it because the things he said apply to me and mean that I'm a retarded, morally bankrupt piece of shit uuhhh. Yeah, the thing."
Hym "It's about submission and it's about getting me to accept the bullshit you say regardless of whether or it's true. It can't be punching down if you think the people being punched are above me (conceptually). You think she is fucking the retard explicitly because the retard is better than me. You think I'm a bad man and that bad men are worse than women. How is that punching down to you? You cannot think the thing you are claiming to think. If being an assburger is a super power, how am I punching down? The only way for me to be punching down is for me to be better than everyone I'm punching."
when you're holding up your phone and making faces at it, as though you are taking a selfie, but you're really taking a picture of the person across from you or the wall or anything else that seems interesting but you don't want to be caught dead taking a picture of.
This action is often made more convincing by wiggling the eyebrows or opening the mouth, to pretend you're trying to get a Snapchat filter to work.