without fail

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

without fail

1. (idiomatic) Certainly; by all means; as a matter of importance.

   You will report to the police every week without fail.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 30:8:

     And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 149:

     "Tuesday by all means." "Tuesday, then, without fail."

2. Inevitably.

Translations

certainly

• Bulgarian: непреме́нно (bg) (nepreménno)
• Burmese: မုချ (my) (mu.hkya.), ဆက်ဆက် (my) (hcakhcak), မပျက်မကွက် (my) (ma.pyakma.kwak)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一定 (zh) (yīdìng)

• Esperanto: nepre (eo)
• French: sans faute (fr)
• Galician: certamente
• German: unbedingt (de)
• Hungarian: okvetlenül (hu), feltétlenül (hu), mindenképpen (hu)
• Icelandic: áreiðanlega, örugglega
• Italian: immancabilmente (it), senza dubbio
• Japanese: 是非 (ja) (ぜひ, zehi)
• Korean: 반드시 (ko) (bandeusi)
• Kyrgyz: албетте (ky) (albette), сөзсүз (ky) (sözsüz), милдеттүү түрдө (ky) (mildettüü türdö), кандай болсо да (ky) (kanday bolso da)
• Russian: непреме́нно (ru) (nepreménno), обяза́тельно (ru) (objazátelʹno), (colloquial) как штык (kak štyk, literally “like a bayonet”)
• Spanish: sin falta

inevitably — see inevitably

Further reading

• “without fail”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “without fail” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “without fail”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “without fail” (US) / “without fail” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.