fall off

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To become detached or to drop from.

   • A button fell off my coat.
   • Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert.
2. 2

   To diminish in size, value, etc. To get worse (in quality).

   • Business always falls off in the winter.
   • MC ___'s new album is wack - he's fallen off big-time.
   • With the advent of motor bus services, traffic on the Rosebush line fell off to such an extent that it was decided to withdraw the passenger trains in the autumn of 1937.
3. 3

   To change the direction of the sail so as to point in a direction that is more down wind

   To change the direction of the sail so as to point in a direction that is more down wind; to bring the bow leeward.

   • 1854, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, Lawrence v. Minturn, Opinion of the Court She would not mind her helm, but would fall off; she would settle down aft and take in water over her stern, and plunged heavily forward.
   • The pilot-boy, who was on the look-out forward, and was keeping the boat from falling off by using the starboard oar, as the current went in a westerly direction, answered that he thought "it went a little easier forward."
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      To fall into sin

      To fall into sin; stray.

      • I am bound to say that no one has fallen off so frequently as myself. I have renounced the devil and all his works; but it is by word of mouth only—by word of mouth only.
   2. 5

      Alternative form of falloff.

The neighborhood