- (v.i.) 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.
- (v.i.) To come short of a result or object aimed at or desired; to be baffled or frusrated.
- (v.t.) To be wanting to; to be insufficient for; to disappoint; to desert.
- (v.t.) To miss of attaining; to lose.
- (v.i.) To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence; to cease to be furnished in the usual or expected manner or to be altogether cut off from supply; to be lacking; as, streams fail; crops fail.
- (v.i.) Miscarriage; failure; deficiency; fault; -- mostly superseded by failure or failing, except in the phrase without fail.
- (v.i.) To be found wanting with respect to an action or a duty to be performed, a result to be secured, etc.; to miss; not to fulfill expectation.
- (v.i.) To deteriorate in respect to vigor, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker; as, a sick man fails.
- (v.i.) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
- (v.i.) To perish; to die; -- used of a person.
- (v.i.) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
- (v.i.) Death; decease.
- (v.i.) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; -- used with of.
Failingly and Fail
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
verb
- Fail to do something; leave something undone.
- usage: "She failed to notice that her child was no longer in his crib"; "The secretary failed to call the customer and the company lost the account"
- synonyms: neglect
- Be unsuccessful.
- usage: "Where do today's public schools fail"; "The attempt to rescue the hostages failed miserably"
- Disappoint, prove undependable to; abandon, forsake.
- usage: "His sense of smell failed him this time"; "His strength finally failed him"; "His children failed him in the crisis"
- synonyms: betray
- Stop operating or functioning.
- usage: "The engine finally went"; "The car died on the road"; "The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town"; "The coffee maker broke"; "The engine failed on the way to town"; "her eyesight went after the accident"
- Be unable.
- usage: "I fail to understand your motives"
- Judge unacceptable.
- usage: "The teacher failed six students"
- Fail to get a passing grade.
- usage: "She studied hard but failed nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test"
- Fall short in what is expected.
- usage: "She failed in her obligations as a good daughter-in-law"; "We must not fail his obligation to the victims of the Holocaust"
- Become bankrupt or insolvent; fail financially and close.
- usage: "The toy company went bankrupt after the competition hired cheap Mexican labor"; "A number of banks failed that year"
- Prove insufficient.
- usage: "The water supply for the town failed after a long drought"
- Get worse.
- usage: "Her health is declining"
WordNet 3.0 © 2006 by Princeton University
Fail is a deal is said to fail if on the settlement date either the seller does not deliver securities in proper form or the buyer does not to deliver funds in proper form.