Verb

(en verb)

To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.

* 2013 May 23, , " British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):

Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect . In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.”

Verb

(en verb)

(label) To be unsuccessful.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= A new prescription , passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}

(label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)

(label) To neglect.

To cease to operate correctly.

(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.

* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4

There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.

* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism

A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]

*

, title=The Mirror and the Lamp , chapter=2 citation , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}

(label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.

(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.

To miss attaining; to lose.

* Milton

though that seat of earthly bliss be failed

To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.

The crops failed last year.

* Bible, Job xiv. 11

as the waters fail from the sea

* Shakespeare

Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.

(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .

* Berke

If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.

(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.

* Milton

When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .

(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.

A sick man fails .

(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.

* Shakespeare

had the king in his last sickness failed

(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.

* Milton

Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.

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.