break one's fall

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Interrupt a tumble or descent, as in It's a long way down over this cliff, with nothing to break your fall. [Mid-1800s]

QUIZ

WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?

Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!

Question 1 of 7

Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift.

Words nearby break one's fall

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In his view, a writer has only one duty: to be present in his books.
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Yet this, in the end, is a book from which one emerges sad, gloomy, disenchanted, at least if we agree to take it seriously.
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The fear of violence should not determine what one does or does not say.
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The al Qaeda-linked gunmen shot back, but only managed to injure one officer before they were taken out.
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Practise gliding in the form of inflection, or slide, from one extreme of pitch to another.
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He alludes to it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce insensibility.
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There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died; but no one knew anything certainly.
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Truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.
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Under the one-sixth they appear as slender, highly refractive fibers with double contour and, often, curled or split ends.
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