Fall
(Fall), n.
1. The act of falling; a dropping or descending be the force of gravity; descent; as, a fall from a horse, or
from the yard of ship.
2. The act of dropping or tumbling from an erect posture; as, he was walking on ice, and had a fall.
3. Death; destruction; overthrow; ruin.
They thy fall conspire.
Denham.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Prov. xvi. 18. 4. Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as,
the fall of the Roman empire.
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.
Pope. 5. The surrender of a besieged fortress or town ; as, the fall of Sebastopol.
6. Diminution or decrease in price or value; depreciation; as, the fall of prices; the fall of rents.
7. A sinking of tone; cadence; as, the fall of the voice at the close of a sentence.
8. Declivity; the descent of land or a hill; a slope.
9. Descent of water; a cascade; a cataract; a rush of water down a precipice or steep; — usually in the
plural, sometimes in the singular; as, the falls of Niagara.
10. The discharge of a river or current of water into the ocean, or into a lake or pond; as, the fall of the
Po into the Gulf of Venice. Addison.
11. Extent of descent; the distance which anything falls; as, the water of a stream has a fall of five feet.
12. The season when leaves fall from trees; autumn.
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills.
Dryden. 13. That which falls; a falling; as, a fall of rain; a heavy fall of snow.
14. The act of felling or cutting down. "The fall of timber." Johnson.
15. Lapse or declension from innocence or goodness. Specifically: The first apostasy; the act of our first
parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also, the apostasy of the rebellious angels.
16. Formerly, a kind of ruff or band for the neck; a falling band; a faule. B. Jonson.
17. That part (as one of the ropes) of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting.
Fall herring (Zoöl.), a herring of the Atlantic (Clupea mediocris); — also called tailor herring, and hickory
shad. — To try a fall, to try a bout at wrestling. Shak.
