Downfall
//ˈdaʊnfɔːl// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth. countable, uncountable
"Many economic and political reasons led to the downfall of the Roman Empire."
- 2 failure that results in a loss of position or reputation wordnet
- 3 The cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error. countable, uncountable
"Orson Scott Card It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead."
- 4 a sudden decline in strength or number or importance wordnet
- 5 An act of falling down. countable, uncountable
"a downfall of rain"
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- 6 the falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist) wordnet
Verb
- 1 To fall down; deteriorate; decline. intransitive
"[...] 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.""
Example
More examples"Drink brought about his downfall."
Etymology
From down- + fall. In this spelling, from 16th century; spelled as two words from 13th century.
Related phrases
More for "downfall"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.