fail

Etymology 1

From Middle English failen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman faillir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *sgʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”). Compare Dutch feilen, falen (“to fail, miss”), German fehlen (“to fail, miss, lack”), Danish fejle (“to fail, err”), Swedish fela (“to fail, be wanting, do wrong”), Icelandic feila (“to fail”), Spanish fallar (“to fail, miss”).

verb

1. (intransitive) To be unsuccessful.
   Throughout my life, I have always failed.
   As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. 2013-08-10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
2. (transitive) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
   The truck failed to start.
3. (transitive) To neglect.
   The report fails to take into account all the mitigating factors.
   Those who have advocated the closure of the G.C. have so far failed to say by which alternative route this North-to-West traffic could be carried. 1960 December, B. Perren, “The role of the Great Central—present and future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 765
4. (intransitive) Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly.
   After running five minutes, the engine failed.
   We also found that the only emergency egress from the tram was by smashing the front or rear windscreens, and that emergency lighting had failed when the tram overturned. December 29 2021, Dominique Louis, “Causal analysis: crashworthiness at Sandilands”, in RAIL, number 947, page 33
5. (transitive) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert; to disappoint one's expectations.
   I've failed my parents many times growing up.
   That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence. 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp
6. (transitive, intransitive) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
   I failed English last year.
7. (transitive) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
   The professor failed me because I did not complete any of the course assignments.
8. (transitive, obsolete) To miss attaining; to lose.
9. To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
   The crops failed last year.
10. (archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of.
    If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be attributed to their size. 1757, Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
11. (archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
12. (archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
    A sick man fails.
13. (obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
14. (obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
15. To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.

noun

1. A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
2. A failing grade in an academic examination.
3. (slang, US) A failure (something incapable of success).
4. (uncountable, slang) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
   The project was full of fail.

adj

1. (slang, US) Unsuccessful; inadequate; unacceptable in some way.

Etymology 2

Unknown. Compare Scottish Gaelic fàl (“hedge”), Scots faill (“turf”). Attested from the 16th century.

noun

1. A piece of turf cut from grassland.