fail
IPA: fˈeɪɫ
noun
- A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
- A failing grade in an academic examination.
- (slang, US) A failure (something incapable of success).
- (uncountable, slang) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
- A piece of turf cut from grassland.
- A surname.
verb
- (intransitive) To be unsuccessful.
- (transitive) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
- (transitive) To neglect.
- (intransitive) Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly.
- (transitive) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert; to disappoint one's expectations.
- (transitive, intransitive) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
- (transitive) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
- (transitive, obsolete) To miss attaining; to lose.
- To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
- (archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of.
- (archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
- (archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
- (obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
- (obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
- 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.
adjective
- (slang, US) Unsuccessful; inadequate; unacceptable in some way.
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Examples of "fail" in Sentences
- The lead fails verification.
- These features fail to obtrude.
- The agreement failed to materialize.
- The rebellion and the invassion failed.
- It is a dishonor for the failing matador.
- That is the failing of the ancap analysis.
- 'You can't fail,' she said, '_I won't let you fail_!'
- The rest fail to divide, fail to implant, or miscarry.
- Q: You say that one way to fail is to quit taking risks.
- We shall not fail -- if we stand firm, we _shall not fail_.
- Should I draw the moral that sometimes to fail is to succeed?
- Remedial work has commenced on the failed portions of the bridge.
- Q: You often warn that one way to fail is to love your bureaucracy.
- When the network failed to work, Blockbuster pulled out of the contract.
- His evidence fails to show the truth and it fails to nullify the falsehood.
- [Illustration: "And he," she said, "has still a chance if -- I fail you?"] "Of course -- if you _fail_ me."
- Moreover, see whether the term fail to be used in the same relation both when called by the name of its genus, and also when called by those of all the genera of its genus.
- Notice, once again, how the instinct of the Republic party types who want Obama to fail is to make ‘gotcha’ points that might sound clever but are actually completely wrongheaded.
- Marc Ventresca, a lecturer in strategy and innovation at Oxford University's Saïd Business School , and an expert in what he calls the "fail early, fail often" world of Silicon Valley tech start-ups.
- “King of Rome,” put an end to the fond hopes of the Italians, who had been taught by Napoleon to expect that, after his death, their country should possess a government separate from France; nor could the same title fail to excite some bitter feelings in the Austrian court, whose heir-apparent under the old empire had been styled commonly “The King of the Romans.”