downfall
Americannoun
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a sudden loss of position, health, or reputation
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a fall of rain, snow, etc, esp a sudden heavy one
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another word for deadfall
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of downfall
Explanation
A downfall is a sudden drop in status or strength. You might be winning at Monopoly until your opponents decide to team up against you, which leads to your downfall. Poor political decisions can result in the downfall of a government or party, and an economic depression can lead to the downfall of businesses and banks. A more literal, but less common, kind of downfall is when rain or snow falls down to the ground: "The downfall of snow will make the roads slippery tonight." The "decline in strength" meaning has been in use since the 14th century.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But it would be precisely that historical moment that would be the band’s downfall.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
But the downfall in question is constant and torrential and suddenly everyone around is sealed inside his or her house.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
The failure of Enron was a prime lesson in how related-party transactions can lead to a company’s downfall.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The move marks a sudden downfall for the highflying, AI-focused hedge fund, led by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
However, as we have seen, classical general relativity predicts its own downfall.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
Whether any of these downfalls will result in a re-examination of how men treat women writ large looks less likely.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 7, 2026
The soggy weather is expected to continue through Tuesday with the heaviest downfalls tapering off by midday Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 3, 2026
There are warnings of further heavy downfalls into Saturday.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2024
The four-part series chronicles Beckham’s early beginnings, career highlights, career downfalls and family life through interviews with Beckham and old footage.
From Salon ● Oct. 6, 2023
Yet the superficial accumulation extended under all of them except such as were in direct contact with the bedrock, proving that the cave was occupied throughout the period in which such downfalls occurred.
From Archeological Investigations Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 by Gerard Fowke
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
