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Fail vs Burn - What's the difference?

fail | burn |

As nouns the difference between fail and burn

is that fail is while burn is water.

fail

English

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.
  • Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . See

    Synonyms

    * (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's face

    Antonyms

    * (to be unsuccessful) succeed

    Derived terms

    * failure * fail-safe

    Noun

  • (uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
  • The project was full of fail .
  • (label) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
  • A failure (something incapable of success)
  • A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
  • A failing grade in an academic examination.
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That is a failure.
  • References

    * * *

    burn

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) bernen, birnen, from (etyl) byrnan, .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A physical injury caused by heat or cold or electricity or radiation or caustic chemicals.
  • She had second-degree burns from falling in the bonfire.
  • A sensation resembling such an injury.
  • chili burn from eating hot peppers
  • The act of burning something.
  • They're doing a controlled burn of the fields.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn .}}
  • Physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous exercise, caused by build-up of lactic acid.
  • One and, two and, keep moving; feel the burn !
  • (slang) An intense non-physical sting, as left by an effective insult.
  • tobacco
  • * {{quote-book, year=2002
  • , year_published= , publisher=Waterside Press , editor=Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr , author=Tom Wickham , title=Prison Writing , chapter=A Day In The Wrong Life , edition=Sixteenth Edition citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=7IpXLpypY7IC&pg=PA26 , isbn=9781872870403 , page=26 , passage=TOM: I’m serious bruv. Put my burn and lighter and all that in my jeans please and give them here, then press the cell bell.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006
  • , year_published= , publisher=Chipmunkapublishing ltd , author=S. Drake , title=A Cry for Help , section=Chapter 7 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=LvdPsZHXG3kC&pg=PA94 , isbn=9781847470010 , page=94 , passage=“Any of you want to borrow some burn ,” asked a scarred inmate known as Bull.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006
  • , year_published= , publisher=Policy Press , editor=Peter Squires , author= , title=Community Safety: Critical Perspectives on Policy and Practice , chapter= , volume= , volume_plain= , section= citation , pageurl= , isbn=9781861347305 1861347308 , page=23 , passage=It was like no one was looking out for me, and the older kids used to take the piss ...they were always threatening me and taking my burn [tobacco]
  • * 2010 , Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles :
  • As the prison week ended and the less careful inmates began to run out of burn they went through a peculiar begging ritual that I, never one to husband resources either, was quick to learn.
  • The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.
  • They have a good burn .
  • A disease in vegetables; brand.
  • An effective insult.
  • Derived terms
    * burn-in * chemical burn * first-degree burn * freezer burn * rugburn * friction burn * carpet burn * outburn * powder burn * second-degree burn * sideburns * slow burn * sunburn * third-degree burn

    Verb

  • (lb) To be consumed by fire, or at least in flames.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
  • (lb) To become overheated to the point of being unusable.
  • :
  • (lb) To feel hot, e.g. due to embarrassment.
  • :
  • (lb) To sunburn.
  • :
  • To accidentally touch a moving stone.
  • To cause to be consumed by fire.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.}}
  • To overheat so as to make unusable.
  • :
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect.
  • (lb) To injure (a person or animal) with heat or caustic chemicals.
  • :
  • (lb) To make or produce by the application of fire or burning heat.
  • :
  • (lb) To consume, injure, or change the condition of, as if by action of fire or heat; to affect as fire or heat does.
  • :
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:This tyrant fever burns me up.
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:This dry sorrow burns up all my tears.
  • To cauterize.
  • To betray.
  • :
  • To write data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.
  • :
  • (lb) To waste (time).
  • :
  • To insult or defeat.
  • :
  • In pontoon, to swap a pair of cards for another pair. Also to deal a dead card.
  • (lb) To increase the exposure for certain areas of a print in order to make them lighter (compare (dodge)).
  • To combine energetically, with evolution of heat.
  • :
  • To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent, with evolution of heat; to consume; to oxidize.
  • :
  • In certain games, to approach near to a concealed object which is sought.
  • :
  • Derived terms
    * burn a hole in one's pocket * * burn book * burn down * burn in * burn out * burn rubber * burn the roof * burn through * burn up * burner * burnout * ears are burning

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) burn, bourne, from (etyl) burne, .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Scotland, northern England) A stream.
  • * 1881 , Gerard Manley Hopkins,
  • THIS darksome burn , horseback brown,
    His rollrock highroad roaring down,
    In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
    Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
  • * 1881 , :
  • He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn , and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones.
  • * 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, page 105:
  • When it was too heavy rain the burn ran very high and wide and ye could never jump it.