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To use your example:

Animal a = new Animal();
Animal c = new Cat();
Cat cat = (cat)c;
c.meow(); //can't do this, there is no guarantee that c has a meow method
cat.meow(); //can do this, the...

It depends on your definition of "downcasting".

You cannot convert an Animal into a Cat. But if an instance of Cat is stored as an Animal (or Object, whatever), then you can indeed cast that as a...