Downfall vs Ruin - What's the difference?
downfall | ruin | Related terms |
A precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth.
* {{quote-news
, year=2012
, date=May 13
, author=Alistair Magowan
, title=Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd
, work=BBC Sport
The cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error.
*
An act of falling down.
* (Thomas Hardy), A Laodicean
To fall down; deteriorate; decline.
* 1977 , Mina P. Shaughnessy, Errors and expectations: a guide for the teacher of basic writing :
* 1998 , Peter Vink, Ernst A. P. Koningsveld, Steven Dhondt, Human factors in organizational design and management-VI :
* 1998 , Lithuanian physics journal:
* 2008 , Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra :
The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle.
*(Joseph Addison) (1672–1719)
*:The Veian and the Gabian towers shall fall, / And one promiscuous ruin' cover all; / Nor, after length of years, a stone betray / The place where once the very ' ruins lay.
*(Joseph Stevens Buckminster) (1751-1812)
*:The labour of a day will not build up a virtuous habit on the ruins of an old and vicious character.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=Foreword (lb) The state of being a ruin, destroyed or decayed.
:
(lb) Something that leads to serious trouble or destruction.
:
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:The errors of young men are the ruin of business.
*
*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin —but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
(lb) A fall or tumble.
*(George Chapman) (1559-1634)
*:His ruin startled the other steeds.
A change that destroys or defeats something; destruction; overthrow.
:
*(Thomas Gray) (1716-1771)
*:Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
to cause the ruin of.
* 1883 ,
To destroy or make something no longer usable.
* Longfellow
To upset or mess up the plans or progress of, or to put into disarray; to spoil.
Downfall is a related term of ruin.
As nouns the difference between downfall and ruin
is that downfall is a precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth while ruin is .As a verb downfall
is to fall down; deteriorate; decline.downfall
English
Noun
(en noun)- Many economic and political reasons led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.
citation, page= , passage=The Black Cats contributed to their own downfall for the only goal when Titus Bramble, making his first appearance since Boxing Day, and Michael Turner, let Phil Jones' cross bounce across the six-yard box as Rooney tucked in at the back post.}}
- It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.
Synonyms
* (precipitous decline in fortune) fall * (death or rapid deterioration) doomDerived terms
*Verb
- [...] wants to make civilization his subject, he will have a hard time proceeding with the sentence unless collapse is in his active vocabulary, for he cannot say "our civilization will downfall " or "fall down."
- Common belief has been that in the future the number of middle managers will downfall due to empowerment and team-building.
- It should be noted that the magnitude of satellites decreases when tuning out of degeneracy, and in the wavelength range of 1.2-1.3 pm it downfalls to the value of 10-15% of the main spike magnitude.
- [...] As goodly air as ever From lunar orb downfell — Be it by hazard, Or supervened it by arrogancy?
Derived terms
* down-fallen, downfallenAnagrams
*ruin
English
Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.}}
Verb
(en verb)- In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us; for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted...
- He ruined his new white slacks by accidentally spilling oil on them.
- By the fireside there are old men seated, / Seeling ruined cities in the ashes.
- My car breaking down just as I was on the road ruined my vacation.