fail
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "fail", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "fail" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "fail" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
fail is aEnglishverb. It means: To be unsuccessful. Pronounced /feɪl/. It ranks #2,441 in English word frequency. Often confused with fi and FL.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fail |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /feɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,441 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fail is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /feɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,441 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for fail, with forms such as "afil", "faill", and "fali". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fi", "FL", "far", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English failen, borrowed from Old French falir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”).… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is fail, spelled F-A-I-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To be unsuccessful.
- 2Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
- 3To neglect.
- 4Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly.
- 5To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert; to disappoint one's expectations.
- 6To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
- 7To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
- 8To miss attaining; to lose.
- 9To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
- 10To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of.
- 11To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
- 12To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
- 13To perish; to die; used of a person.
- 14To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
- 15To 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.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English failen, borrowed from Old French falir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”). Compare Alemannic German fääle (“to lack”), Cimbrian béelan, véelan (“to fail”), veln (“to be absent, missing”), Dutch falen, feilen (“to fail, miss”), German fallieren, fehlen (“to fail, miss, lack”), Danish fejle (“to fail, err”), Swedish fallera (“to fail, break, malfunction”), Spanish fallar (“to fail, miss”).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: afil,faill,fali,ffail,fial
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for fail
Misspelling Variants of "fail"
Frequency rank: #2,441 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: