fall away

verb

1. (of friendship) to be withdrawn

2. to slope down

Idioms and Phrases

Also, fall off . Withdraw one's friendship, support, or allegiance. For example, After the divorce, her friends slowly fell away . [Early 1500s]

Also, fall off . Gradually decline in size or strength, as in The breeze slowly fell away , or, as Shakespeare put it ( King Lear , 1:2): “Love cools, friendship falls off, Brothers divide.” [Early 1500s]

Drift from an established faith, cause, or principles. For example, I fell away from the Catholic Church when I was a teenager . [Early 1500]

Example Sentences

Crops were harvested, leaves fell away, and the landscape turned stark and gray.

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The Gunners have beaten all of them this time around, but dropped 10 points across those games as they fell away in the title race last season.

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Hamilton said: "That was definitely not the pace we were expecting. It was looking good in practice and Q1 was looking decent and then it started to fall away from us."

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The upswing at the start of 2025, as U.S. importers ramped up orders to get ahead of proposed tariffs, fell away in the second quarter of the year.

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"The 10 years of not seeing him fell away in an instant."

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Related Words

• abate 
• degenerate 
• deteriorate 
• die down 
• die out 
• diminish 
• dwindle 
• ease off 
• fall back 
• lessen 
• melt 
• peter out 
• recede 
• shrink 
• slacken 
• wane 
• weaken