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Glite Dictionary
to spirits fall

to spirits fall

1 5.5
To feel sad or discouraged
  • phrasal verb
: decaer
  • Even though the day started well, my spirits fell when I lost my wallet.

Examples

  • After hearing the disappointing news, her spirits fell and she sat quietly in her chair.

  • He began to grin, and her heart fell; her spirits fell like a blown leaf.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • When he realized he hadn't been invited to the party, his spirits fell dramatically.

Synonyms

to fall
vsto spirits fall
66 6.3

Show a sudden sad or disappointed look

describes an internal change into sadness or discouragement over time

How Discouraged

to spirits fall
1 5.5
to feel down
23 3.0

Surface Forms

spirits fall infinitive
spirits falling present participle
spirits falls third person singular
spirits fell past
spirits fallen past participle

Morphology

spirit + fall

The phrase combines 'spirits' (mood, morale) with 'fall' (to drop/decrease), so the sense 'one's mood drops; become sad or discouraged' is directly derivable from the constituents. This downward-mood metaphor is cross-linguistically common, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both words.

Etymology

The phrase spirits fall may come from the simple image of someone's spirits, meaning their mood, suddenly falling like a small object, so it came to mean feeling 'sad' or 'discouraged'.