fail

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See also: Fail, fàil, fáil, and Fäil

English

Pronunciation

  • enPR: fāl, IPA(key): /feɪl/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪl

Etymology 1

A goalkeeper failing to stop the ball from entering the goal

From Middle English failen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman faillir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *sgʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”).

Compare Dutch feilen, falen (“to fail, miss”), German fehlen (“to fail, miss, lack”), Danish fejle (“to fail, err”), Swedish fela (“to fail, be wanting, do wrong”), Icelandic feila (“to fail”), Spanish fallar (“to fail, miss”).

Verb

fail (third-person singular simple present fails, present participle failing, simple past and past participle failed)

  1. (intransitive) To be unsuccessful.
    Throughout my life, I have always failed.
    • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “The Historie of Englande”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC, page 249, column 1:
      If they ſhoulde gyue battayle it was to be doubted, leaſt through treaſon amõgſt themſelues, the armie ſhould be betrayed into the enimies hands, the which would not fayle to execute all kinde of crueltie in the ſlaughter of the whole nation.
    • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
      As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
  2. (transitive) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
    The truck failed to start.
  3. (transitive) To neglect.
    The report fails to take into account all the mitigating factors.
    • 1960 December, B. Perren, “The role of the Great Central—present and future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 765:
      Those who have advocated the closure of the G.C. have so far failed to say by which alternative route this North-to-West traffic could be carried.
  4. (intransitive) Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly.
    After running five minutes, the engine failed.
    • 2021 December 29, Dominique Louis, “Causal analysis: crashworthiness at Sandilands”, in RAIL, number 947, page 33:
      We also found that the only emergency egress from the tram was by smashing the front or rear windscreens, and that emergency lighting had failed when the tram overturned.
  5. (transitive) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 2:4:
      There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
    • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. II, Gospel of Mammonism”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker):
      A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp‎[1]:
      That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.
  6. (transitive, intransitive) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
    I failed English last year.
  7. (transitive) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
    The professor failed me because I did not complete any of the course assignments.
  8. (transitive, obsolete) To miss attaining; to lose.
  9. To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
    The crops failed last year.
  10. (archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of.
    • 1757, Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
      If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be attributed to their size.
  11. (archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:
      When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail.
  12. (archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
    A sick man fails.
  13. (obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
  14. (obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:
      Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
  15. To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
Usage notes
Alternative forms
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

fail (countable and uncountable, plural fails)

  1. (uncountable, slang) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
    The project was full of fail.
  2. (slang) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
  3. (slang, US) A failure (something incapable of success)
  4. A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
  5. A failing grade in an academic examination.
Derived terms

Adjective

fail (comparative more fail, superlative most fail)

  1. (slang, US) Unsuccessful; inadequate; unacceptable in some way.

Etymology 2

Unknown. Compare Scottish Gaelic fàl (“hedge”), Scots faill (“turf”). Attested from the 16th century.[1]

Alternative forms

Noun

fail (plural fails)

  1. A piece of turf cut from grassland.
Derived terms

References

  1. ^ fail, n.1, in Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

Indonesian

Etymology

From English file, from Old French fil (“thread”), from Latin filum (“thread”). Compare to Malay fail.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈfaɪl]
  • Hyphenation: fa‧il

Noun

fail

  1. file,
    1. a collection of papers collated and archived together.
      Synonyms: berkas, dokumen
    2. (computing) an aggregation of data on a storage device, identified by a name.
  2. file rack

Further reading

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish foil, from Proto-Celtic *wali-, from Proto-Indo-European *wel-. Cognates include Ancient Greek ἕλιξ (hélix, “something twisted”).

Pronunciation

Noun

fail f (genitive singular faile, nominative plural faileanna)

  1. ring
  2. bracelet
  3. wreath
  4. sty

Declension

Declension of fail

Second declension

Bare forms

Case Singular Plural
Nominative fail faileanna
Vocative a fhail a fhaileanna
Genitive faile faileanna
Dative fail faileanna

Forms with the definite article

Case Singular Plural
Nominative an fhail na faileanna
Genitive na faile na bhfaileanna
Dative leis an bhfail

don fhail

leis na faileanna

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
fail fhail bhfail
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Malay

Etymology

From English file.

Noun

fail (plural fail-fail)

  1. file (collection of papers)
  2. information or a document about someone, something etc.
  3. (computing) file (aggregation of data on a storage device)

Derived terms

Verb

fail (used in the form memfailkan)

  1. file (commit papers)
  2. file (to archive)
  3. (computing) file (store computer data)
  4. (with untuk) file (make a formal request)

Old Irish

Verb

fail

  1. Alternative form of fil

Turkish

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish فاعل (fa'il), from Arabic فَاعِل (fāʕil).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /faːˈil/
  • Hyphenation: fa‧il

Noun

fail (definite accusative faili, plural failler)

  1. (grammar, archaic) subject
    Synonym: özne
  2. author
  3. agent, doer
  4. (law) actor, perpetrator

References

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