fall away
Britishverb
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(of friendship) to be withdrawn
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to slope down
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Also, fall off . Withdraw one's friendship, support, or allegiance. For example, After the divorce, her friends slowly fell away . [Early 1500s]
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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]
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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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Cook said the first turn on the course, which Vonn was traversing when she got into trouble, is actually much steeper falling away from the skier than it looks on TV.
From Los Angeles Times
In November, Scotland were poor enough to fall 17-0 behind against New Zealand and yet good enough to make it 17-17 thereafter, before falling away at the end.
From BBC
As she does so, everything else falls away, leaving only this image of solitary resistance against a force that does not answer back.
From Los Angeles Times
Without warning, without a hint of noise, the side of the mountain fell away.
From Literature
"It's a combination of a few things, but certainly there is some residual trauma about the two seasons where we felt on track for the title and suddenly fell away," she added.
From BBC
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.
