downfall

English

Alternative forms

• downfal (archaic)

Etymology

From down- +‎ fall. In this spelling, from 16th century; spelled as two words from 13th century.

Pronunciation

• (noun) IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnfɔːl/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (verb) IPA^(key): /daʊnˈfɔːl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

downfall (countable and uncountable, plural downfalls)

1. A precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth.

   Synonyms: (precipitous decline in fortune) fall, (death or rapid deterioration) doom

   Many economic and political reasons led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.

   • 2012 May 13, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0 – 1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport‎^[1], archived from the original on 9 May 2019:

     The Black Cats contributed to their own downfall for the only goal when Titus Bramble, making his first appearance since Boxing Day, and Michael Turner, let Phil Jones' cross bounce across the six-yard box as [Wayne] Rooney tucked in at the back post.

2. The cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error.
   • Orson Scott Card

     It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.

3. An act of falling down.

   a downfall of rain

   • 1880–1881, Thomas Hardy, chapter VII, in A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De Stancys. A Story of To-day. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, […], published 1881, →OCLC, book the third (De Stancy), page 147:

     [T]he prominent character of leading young lady or heroine, which Paula was to personate, was really the most satisfactory in the whole list for her. For although she was to be wooed hard, there was just as much love-making among the remaining personages; while, as Somerset had understood the play, there could occur no flingings of her person upon her lover's neck, or agonized downfalls upon the stage, in her whole performance, [...]

Derived terms

• Operation Downfall

Translations

precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth

• Armenian: անկում (hy) (ankum)
• Azerbaijani: süqut, dağılma
• Bulgarian: провал (bg) m (proval), крах (bg) m (krah)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 倒臺／倒台 (zh) (dǎotái)

• Dutch: neergang (nl) m
• Esperanto: falego
• Finnish: kukistuminen, tuho (fi)
• French: chute (fr) f
• German: Niedergang (de) m, Untergang (de) m, Verfall (de) m
• Greek: πτώση (el) f (ptósi)
• Hungarian: bukás (hu), kudarc (hu)
• Italian: caduta (it) f, tonfo (it) m, rovinio m, rovescio (it) m
• Japanese: 衰亡 (ja) (suibō), 滅亡 (ja) (metsubō), 最期 (ja) (saigo)
• Latin: ruīna f
• Malayalam: പതനം (ml) (patanaṁ)
• Maori: hinganga
• Polish: upadek (pl) m
• Portuguese: ruína (pt) f, queda (pt) f
• Quechua: urma
• Russian: паде́ние (ru) n (padénije), круше́ние (ru) n (krušénije), обва́л (ru) m (obvál), крах (ru) m (krax)
• Spanish: ocaso (es) m, declive (es) m, decaimiento m, decadencia (es) f
• Yiddish: אומקומעניש n (umkumenish)

cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error

• Finnish: tuho (fi)
• German: Ruin (de) m
• Greek: ήττα (el) f (ítta)
• Italian: rovina (it) f
• Japanese: 致命傷 (ja) (chimeishō)
• Maori: whakahinganga

Verb

downfall (third-person singular simple present downfalls, present participle downfalling, simple past downfell, past participle downfallen)

1. (intransitive) To fall down; deteriorate; decline.
   • 1977, Mina P. Shaughnessy, Errors and expectations: a guide for the teacher of basic writing:

     [...] wants to make civilization his subject, he will have a hard time proceeding with the sentence unless collapse is in his active vocabulary, for he cannot say "our civilization will downfall" or "fall down."

   • 1998, Peter Vink, Ernst A. P. Koningsveld, Steven Dhondt, Human factors in organizational design and management-VI:

     Common belief has been that in the future the number of middle managers will downfall due to empowerment and team-building.

   • 1998, Lithuanian physics journal:

     It should be noted that the magnitude of satellites decreases when tuning out of degeneracy, and in the wavelength range of 1.2-1.3 pm it downfalls to the value of 10-15% of the main spike magnitude.

   • 2008, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra:

     [...] As goodly air as ever From lunar orb downfell— Be it by hazard, Or supervened it by arrogancy?

Derived terms

• down-fallen, downfallen

Anagrams

• Wolfland, fall down, landfowl