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downfall

noun
/ˈdaʊnfɔːl/

Etymology

From down- + fall. In this spelling, from 16th century; spelled as two words from 13th century.

  1. inherited from *fallą✻
  2. inherited from fealle — “trap, snare”
  3. inherited from feall
  4. inherited from fal
  5. inherited from *h₃elh₁-✻ — “to collapse, fall; to destroy”
  6. inherited from *fallaną✻ — “to fall”
  7. inherited from *fallan✻ — “to fall”
  8. inherited from feallan — “to fall, fail, decay, die, attack”
  9. inherited from fallen
  10. prefixed as downfall — “down + fall”

Definitions

  1. A precipitous decline in fortune

    A precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth.

    • Many economic and political reasons led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.

  2. The cause of such a fall

    The cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error.

    • Orson Scott Card It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.

  3. An act of falling down.

    • a downfall of rain
  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. To fall down

      To fall down; deteriorate; decline.

      • [...] wants to make civilization his subject, he will have a hard time proceeding with the sentence unless collapse is in his active vocabulary, for he cannot say "our civilization will downfall" or "fall down."
      • Common belief has been that in the future the number of middle managers will downfall due to empowerment and team-building.
      • It should be noted that the magnitude of satellites decreases when tuning out of degeneracy, and in the wavelength range of 1.2-1.3 pm it downfalls to the value of 10-15% of the main spike magnitude.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for downfall. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA