to fall victim to
25
4.6
- phrasal verb
- Many people fall victim to scams during the holiday season.
- often fall victim to
- fall victim to a disease
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Watch on YouTubeAnd then don't fall victim to what Harvard says most people do.
- And then don't fall victim to what Harvard says most people do.
- But I even I fell victim to the tug of advertisements.
- And what they found is that I had fallen victim to reticulum wilt.
- Then you don't fall victim to these silly things that noobs fall victim to.
- And sometimes when that happens, I'm prone to, to again, falling victim to this bias.
- It is now beyond doubt that the people of Manchester and of this country have fallen victim to a callous terrorist attack.
- And they can either utilize that to move forward or they can fall victim to that.
- And these are just the basic barriers that that make it much easier to succeed when you don't fall victim to those nonsensical traps.
- Even the power of faith, which frequently inspires great generosity and self sacrifice, can fall victim to tribalism.
- I mean, the only thing I would come back on and, and is that it's not just weak, vulnerable women who can fall victim to controlling and coercive behaviour.
- You have to be very disciplined and you have to know, you have to experience telepathy consciously in order to not fall victim to it.
- Edison, Jobs, Bezos at one time or another each fell victim to sunk cost syndrome.
- And everybody falls victim to the comparison game, right?
- I have fallen victim to this narrative.
Examples
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After all, I have a feeling you've fallen victim to her illness.
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I have fallen victim to this narrative.
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But my wife told me I must not fall victim to that.
Fiction book (2001) -
And everybody falls victim to the comparison game, right?
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In fact, large numbers of the social elite fell victim to the disease.
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Everyone who ever lived here falls victim to some tragedy.
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But this kind of rational planning inevitably falls victim to the reality of the political process.
Academic text (1993) -
Indeed, you can fall victim to this sort of thing quite apart from your conscious wishes, desires, whatever.
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Another financial institution has fallen victim to his theatrics.
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Love is an involuntary reflex, and I fell victim to it.
Synonyms
148
4.3
To be tricked into believing something that is not true
1
4.1
Become tricked into a bad or dangerous situation
Antonyms
How Affected
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun 'victim' clearly signals someone who suffers and 'fall' can be used metaphorically to mean 'become' or 'come under' (as in many languages: Spanish 'caer víctima de', French 'tomber victime de'), so a learner who knows the parts can often infer the general idea. However the metaphorical use of 'fall' + the fixed preposition 'to' makes the exact sense and register slightly non-literal and thus not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
The phrase fall victim to paints a simple picture: think of the words fall and victim, where someone walks and suddenly falls into a trap or is caught by a trick and becomes the 'victim' of harm. So, to fall victim to something means 'to be harmed, tricked, or affected by something bad'.