Dictionary entries for 'fail'

Synonyms

fail (fāl)

[Middle English failen, from Old French faillir, from Vulgar Latin* fallīre, variant of Latin fallere, to deceive.]

verb: failed, fail·ing, fails.

To prove deficient or lacking; perform ineffectively or inadequately: failed to fulfill their promises; failed in their attempt to reach the summit.
To be unsuccessful: an experiment that failed.
To receive an academic grade below the acceptable minimum.
To prove insufficient in quantity or duration; give out: The water supply failed during the drought.
To decline, as in strength or effectiveness: The light began to fail.
To cease functioning properly: The engine failed.
To give way or be made otherwise useless as a result of excessive strain: The rusted girders failed and caused the bridge to collapse.
To become bankrupt or insolvent: Their business failed during the last recession.

To disappoint or prove undependable to: Our sentries failed us.
To abandon; forsake: His strength failed him.
To omit to perform (an expected duty, for example): “We must . . . hold . . . those horrors up to the light of justice. Otherwise we would fail our inescapable obligation to the victims of Nazism: to remember” (Anthony Lewis)
To leave undone; neglect: failed to wash the dishes.
1. To receive an academic grade below the acceptable minimum in (a course, for example): failed algebra twice.
2. To give such a grade of failure to (a student): failed me in algebra.

Failure to deliver securities to a purchaser within a specified time.
Failure to receive the proceeds of a transaction, as in the sale of stock or securities, by a specified date.