to fall short of success or achievement in something expected, attempted, desired, or approved: The experiment failed because of poor planning.
to receive less than the passing grade or mark in an examination, class, or course of study: He failed in history.
to be or become deficient or lacking; be insufficient or absent; fall short: Our supplies failed.
to dwindle, pass, or die away: The flowers failed for lack of rain.
to lose strength or vigor; become weak: His health failed after the operation.
to become unable to meet or pay debts or business obligations; become insolvent or bankrupt.
(of a building member, structure, machine part, etc.) to break, bend, crush, or be otherwise destroyed or made useless because of an excessive load.
to stop functioning or operating: The electricity failed during the storm.
Slang.
to make an embarrassing or humorous mistake, be in a humiliating situation, etc., and be subject to ridicule: Showed up late to the wedding? You fail!
to be embarrassingly incompetent, stupid, etc.: She fails at life. I just failed at walking and fell on my face.
to be bad or of inferior quality: The play is terrible—even the music fails.
verb (used with object)
to be unsuccessful in the performance or completion of: He failed to do his duty.
(of some expected or usual resource) to prove of no use or help to: His friends failed him. Words failed her.
to receive less than a passing grade or mark in: He failed history.
to declare (a person) unsuccessful in a test, course of study, etc.; give less than a passing grade to: The professor failed him in history.
noun
Slang.
an embarrassing or humorous mistake, humiliating situation, etc., that is subject to ridicule and given an exaggerated importance: Their app update is a massive fail.
the condition or quality resulting from having failed in this way: His online post is full of fail.
a person who fails in this way.
Stock Exchange.
a stockbroker's inability to deliver or receive security within the required time after sale or purchase.
such an undelivered security.
Obsolete. failure as to performance, occurrence, etc.
interjection
Slang.
(used to mock an embarrassing or humorous mistake, humiliating situation, etc., giving it an exaggerated importance): A tattoo that misspells your name? Fail!
(used to indicate that something is bad or of inferior quality)
adjective
unsuccessful; failed: a totally fail policy.
Slang.
of or noting an embarrassing or humorous mistake, humiliating situation, etc.: the top 100 funniest fail photos on the Internet.
embarrassingly incompetent, stupid, etc: Why am I so fail?
very bad or of inferior quality.
Idioms
without fail, with certainty; positively: I will visit you tomorrow without fail.
Origin of fail
1175–1225;Middle Englishfailen < Anglo-French,Old Frenchfaillir < Vulgar Latin*fallīre, for Latinfallere to disappoint, deceive
early 13c., from Old French falir (11c., Modern French faillir) "be lacking, miss, not succeed," from Vulgar Latin *fallire, from Latin fallere "to trip, cause to fall;" figuratively "to deceive, trick, dupe, cheat, elude; fail, be lacking or defective." Related: Failed; failing. Replaced Old English abreoðan.
n.
late 13c. (e.g. without fail), from Old French faile "deficiency," from falir (see fail (v.)). The Anglo-French form of the verb, failer, also came to be used as a noun, hence failure.
