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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL4 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Fail”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
FailEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
* As a Scottish and Irish surname, shortened from McPhail. * As a Manx surname, variant of Fayle. * As a south German surname, from the adjective feil (“for sale”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗failEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el-der. Proto-Italic *falsō? Classical Latin fallere Vulgar Latin *fallīre Old French falirbor. Middle English failen English fail Inherited from Middle English failen, borrowed from Old French falir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”). Compare Alemannic German fääle (“to lack”), Cimbrian béelan, véelan (“to fail”), veln (“to be absent, missing”), Dutch falen, feilen (“to fail, miss”), German fallieren, fehlen (“to fail, miss, lack”), Danish fejle (“to fail, err”), Swedish fallera (“to fail, break, malfunction”), Spanish fallar (“to fail, miss”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗failEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el-der. Proto-Italic *falsō? Classical Latin fallere Vulgar Latin *fallīre Old French falirbor. Middle English failen English fail Inherited from Middle English failen, borrowed from Old French falir, from Vulgar Latin *fallire, alteration of Latin fallere (“to deceive, disappoint”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāl- (“to lie, deceive”) or Proto-Indo-European *(s)gʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”). Compare Alemannic German fääle (“to lack”), Cimbrian béelan, véelan (“to fail”), veln (“to be absent, missing”), Dutch falen, feilen (“to fail, miss”), German fallieren, fehlen (“to fail, miss, lack”), Danish fejle (“to fail, err”), Swedish fallera (“to fail, break, malfunction”), Spanish fallar (“to fail, miss”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗failEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Unknown. Compare Scottish Gaelic fàl (“hedge”), Scots faill (“turf”). Attested from the 16th century.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
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Mayhew–Skeat (1888)
1888; pinned HTML transcription updated October 28, 2024The query “fail” cannot be resolved without D1. No static search results are fabricated.
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