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Glite Dictionary
to spirits fall

to spirits fall

5.5
To feel sad or discouraged
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : 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
187 6.3

Show a sudden sad or disappointed look

describes an internal change into sadness or discouragement over time

How Discouraged

to spirits fall
5.5
to feel down
15 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'.