to fall
- verb
- /fɔl/
- Literature
- Over time, many who seemed virtuous fall prey to corruption and lose their innocence.
- fall prey to
- fall victim to
- fall into a trap
Examples
-
You fall in love, viejo?
-
Indeed, I did fall under her spell.
-
I tried so hard not to, but I fell for him.
-
I met a young man and we fell in love.
-
Are you waiting to fall in love?
-
Look, I'm not gonna fall for this a second time.
-
But people would never stop falling in love, losing their loved ones, and dying.
Fiction book (1990) -
Everybody seems to be falling for you lately, Beth!?
-
You have to strive not to fall prey to your own doubts and insecurities.
-
Don't fall for it.
Synonyms
Suffer harm you cannot avoid because of someone or something bad
Antonyms
Idioms
- Informal
To accept what happens and not try to change the result
- Informal
To fail completely and feel embarrassed in front of others
Children often look and behave like their parents
- Informal
To react strongly because something is very funny or surprising
- Vulgar
To lose your balance and land on your backside in an awkward or embarrassing way
- Informal
Suddenly fail completely because it is weak or badly built
- Formal
To die as a Christian who trusts in God and expects life after death
To keep trying after many failures no matter how often you fail
Phrasal Verbs
Compounds
- Literature
An event in the Bible when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, lost their innocence, and left the Garden
- Specialized
A green or brown caterpillar with white stripes that eats tree leaves in autumn
A small European plant with yellow flowers that blooms in the fall and is now common in North America
- US
The time when day and night are almost the same length, marking the start of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere
- Literature
A Christian belief that people lose their innocence when they disobey God
- Specialized
A caterpillar that lives in large silk nests on tree branches and eats the leaves in late summer and fall
A bush that loses its leaves and has large cone-shaped flowers in fall
How Serious
- Literature
Surface Forms
Etymology
To fall into sin comes from the idea of falling away from goodness, from old English feallan 'to fall'. So to fall here means to give in to temptation and lose moral standing.