Adjacent Words

Failing definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FA'ILING, ppr. Becoming deficient or insufficient; becoming weaker; decaying; declining; omitting; not executing or performing; miscarrying; neglecting; wanting; becoming bankrupt or insolvent.
FA'ILING, n.
1. The act of failing; deficiency; imperfection; lapse; fault. Failings, in a moral sense, are minor faults, proceeding rather from weakness of intellect or from carelessness, than from bad motives. But the word is often abusively applied to vices of a grosser kind.
2. The act of failing or becoming insolvent.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: below acceptable in performance; "received failing grades" n
1: a flaw or weak point; "he was quick to point out his wife's failings" [syn: failing, weakness]
2: failure to reach a minimum required performance; "his failing the course led to his disqualification"; "he got two flunks on his report" [syn: failing, flunk] [ant: pass, passing, qualifying]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Date: 1590 a usually slight or insignificant defect in character, conduct, or ability Synonyms: see fault II. preposition Date: 1810 in absence or default of <failing specific instructions, use your own judgment>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & prep. --n. a fault or shortcoming; a weakness, esp. in character. --prep. in default of; if not.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fail Failv. i. [imp. & p. p. Failed; p. pr. & vb. n. Failing.] [F. failir, fr. L. fallere, falsum, to deceive, akin to E. fall. See Fail, and cf. Fallacy, False, Fault.] 1. To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence; to cease to be furnished in the usual or expected manner, or to be altogether cut off from supply; to be lacking; as, streams fail; crops fail. As the waters fail from the sea. --Job xiv. 11. Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign. --Shak. 2. To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; -- used with of. If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size. --Berke. 3. To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink. When earnestly they seek Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail. --Milton. 4. To deteriorate in respect to vigor, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker; as, a sick man fails. 5. To perish; to die; -- used of a person. [Obs.] Had the king in his last sickness failed. --Shak. 6. To be found wanting with respect to an action or a duty to be performed, a result to be secured, etc.; to miss; not to fulfill expectation. Take heed now that ye fail not to do this. --Ezra iv. 22. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale. --Shak. 7. To come short of a result or object aimed at or desired; to be baffled or frusrated. Our envious foe hath failed. --Milton. 8. To err in judgment; to be mistaken. Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not. --Milton. 9. To 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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Failing Fail"ing, n. 1. A failing short; a becoming deficient; failure; deficiency; imperfection; weakness; lapse; fault; infirmity; as, a mental failing. And ever in her mind she cas about For that unnoticed failing in herself. --Tennyson. 2. The act of becoming insolvent of bankrupt. Syn: See Fault.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(failings) 1. The failings of someone or something are their faults or unsatisfactory features. Like many in Russia, she blamed the country's failings on futile attempts to catch up with the West... = shortcoming N-COUNT: usu pl, oft with poss 2. You say failing that to introduce an alternative, in case what you have just said is not possible. Find someone who will let you talk things through, or failing that, write down your thoughts. PHRASE: PHR with cl/group

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Decline, decay. 2. Miscarriage, failure. 3. Fault, foible, frailty, shortcoming, imperfection, deficiency, defect, weakness, infirmity, weak side, blind side. 4. Lapse, error, slip. 5. Bankruptcy, insolvency, becoming bankrupt or insolvent.

Moby Thesaurus

abortive, arrested, bad habit, besetting sin, blemish, blind spot, bootless, bug, cachectic, callow, catch, comedown, coming apart, crack, cracking, crumbling, debasement, debilitated, decadence, decadency, decadent, declension, declination, decline, declining, defect, defection, defective, deficiency, deficient, deformation, degeneracy, degenerate, degenerateness, degeneration, degradation, demotion, depravation, depravedness, depreciation, derogation, descent, deteriorating, deterioration, devolution, disintegrating, downtrend, downturn, downward mobility, downward trend, drained, draining, drawback, drooping, drop, dwindling, dying, ebb, ebbing, effete, effeteness, embryonic, enervated, exhausted, fading, failed, failure, failure of nerve, fall, falling, falling-off, fault, faute, feeble, flagging, flaw, foible, found wanting, fragmenting, frail, frailty, fruitless, futile, going to pieces, healthless, hole, hypoplastic, immature, imperfect, imperfection, in arrear, in arrears, in default, in default of, in poor health, in short supply, inadequacy, inadequate, incompetent, incomplete, ineffective, ineffectual, inefficacious, infant, infirm, infirmity, insufficient, invalid, involution, kink, lacking, lame, languishing, lapse, little problem, loss of tone, manque, marcescent, miscarried, miscarrying, missing, moral flaw, moribund, needing, not enough, of no effect, pale, part, partial, patchy, peaked, peaky, pining, problem, reduced, reduced in health, regression, regressive, retrocession, retrogradation, retrograde, retrogression, retrogressive, rift, run-down, sans, scant, scanty, scarce, scrappy, short, shortcoming, shriveling, shy, sickly, sinking, sketchy, sliding, slippage, slipping, slump, slumping, snag, something missing, stickit, stillborn, subsiding, successless, tabetic, taint, too little, underdeveloped, undeveloped, unequal to, unfortunate, unhealthy, unqualified, unsatisfactory, unsatisfying, unsound, unsuccessful, unsufficing, useless, valetudinarian, valetudinary, vice, vulnerable place, wane, waning, wanting, wasting, weak link, weak point, weak side, weakened, weakly, weakness, wilting, with low resistance, withering, without, worsening