Wiktionary

fail

See also: Fail, fáil, fàil, and Fäil

EnglishEdit

Alternative formsEdit

PronunciationEdit

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

Etymology 1Edit

 
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”).

VerbEdit

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, William Harrison, “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 55195564, 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; to disappoint one's expectations.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, 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 191225086, 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.
  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.
  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 notesEdit
ConjugationEdit
Conjugation of fail
infinitive (to) fail
present tense past tense
1st-person singular fail failed
2nd-person singular fail, failest† failed, failedst†
3rd-person singular fails, faileth† failed
plural fail
subjunctive fail failed
imperative fail —
participles failing failed

†Archaic or obsolete.

Alternative formsEdit
SynonymsEdit
AntonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit

NounEdit

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 termsEdit

AdjectiveEdit

fail (comparative more fail, superlative most fail)

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

Etymology 2Edit

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

Alternative formsEdit

NounEdit

fail (plural fails)

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

ReferencesEdit

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

AnagramsEdit

IndonesianEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

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

NounEdit

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 readingEdit

IrishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

fail f (genitive singular faile, nominative plural faileanna)

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

DeclensionEdit

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

MutationEdit

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.

MalayEdit

EtymologyEdit

From English file.

NounEdit

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 termsEdit

VerbEdit

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 IrishEdit

VerbEdit

fail

  1. Alternative form of fil

TurkishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

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

NounEdit

fail (definite accusative faili, plural failler)

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

ReferencesEdit

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