fail

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (8)  · 
“
They, like Dachis Group, suffered a total plain English fail.

View all »
Definitions (50)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (17)

  1. intransitive verb To prove deficient or lacking; perform ineffectively or inadequately: failed to fulfill their promises; failed in their attempt to reach the summit.
  2. intransitive verb To be unsuccessful: an experiment that failed.
  3. intransitive verb To receive an academic grade below the acceptable minimum.
14 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (19)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (11)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • "Too big to fail is too important to sweep under the carpet," King said. —  The Guardian World News
  • EVERY manufactured product will have a percentage of the product fail, or will have components fail, which is what the warranty is for. —  Discussions: Message List - root
  • While it is cynical to place these conditions knowing that the Palestinians will fail, that is their fault. —  THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS
  • Even if Taiwan were to let these firms fail, which is highly unlikely, supply would still exceed demand, according to iSuppli. —  The Economist: Correspondent's diary
  • The biggest way to fail is to reach out to as many people as possible just to broadcast to your followship. —  Devin Reams
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged fail

the secretary of failure · efail · not yet competent · failwhaled · failwhale · failure casserole · fail · fail better · without fail · renege · fail at life

More »

Stats

This word has been looked up 458 times.

1 person has marked this word as a favorite.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

failure ·  find ·  give ·  take ·  make ·  have ·  go ·  requirement ·  strategy ·  move ·  today ·  lie

Used in the same contextWord Family

fail:   failed ·  failing ·  fails
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English failen, from Old French faillir, from Vulgar Latin *fallīre, variant of Latin fallere, to deceive.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. Early modern English also faile, fayle; from Middle English fallen, faylen (= Dutch feilen, falen = Middle High German velen, vælen, German fehlen) = Swedish fela = Danish feile = Icelandic feila, fail, from Old French faillir, fallir, falir, French faillir = Provencal falhir = Old Spanish fallir, Spanish fallecer = Portuguese fallecer, fallir = Italian fallire, fail, miss, omit, deceive, from Latin fallere, past participle falsus, transitive deceive, disappoint, passive (with mid. force) deceive oneself, be deceived, err, be mistaken, prob. orig. *sfallere = Greek σφάλλειν, cause to fall, overthrow, disappoint, passive be baffled or foiled; = Anglo-Saxon feallan, etc., English fall: see fall, v. From the same Latin source are English fault, falter, false, fallible, etc., defail, default, etc.
  2. from Middle English fayle, feyle (only in the frequent phrase withouten fayle, without fail, which also appears in the Old French form, sanz (sauns, sauntz, saun) faile (fayle, feyle)); from Old French faille, faile = Provencal falha, failla = Italian fallo (cf. D. Low German feil = Middle High German væle, German fehl = Danish feil = Swedish fel), n., fail; from the verb.
  3. Scots, also feal, prob. from Swedish vall, a sward, a pasture, apparently a special use of vall, a coast, also a dam, dike, rampart, = English wall: see wall.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/feɪl/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a day.

Recently looked up

disjointed · arraign · zealous · periosteal · underclothes

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

mamaroneck · maladministration · antidisestablishmentarianism · parsimonious · soliloquy