Fail vs Flop - What's the difference?
fail | flop |
(label) To be unsuccessful.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (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
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (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
To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
* Bible, Job xiv. 11
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .
* Berke
(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
* Milton
(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
* Milton
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.
(uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
(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.
To fall heavily, because lacking energy.
To fail completely, not to be successful at all (about a movie, play, book, song etc.).
(sports) To pretend to be fouled in sports, such as basketball, hockey (the same as to dive in soccer)
To strike about with something broad and flat, as a fish with its tail, or a bird with its wings; to rise and fall; to flap.
An incident of a certain type of fall; a plopping down.
A complete failure, especially in the entertainment industry.
(poker) The first three cards turned face-up by the dealer in a game.
* 1996: John Patrick, John Patrick's Casino Poker: Professional Gambler's Guide to Winning
* 2003: Lou Krieger, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games
* 2005: Henry Stephenson, Real Poker Night: Taking Your Home Game to a New Level
A place to stay, sleep or live. See flophouse
* 1973 , Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal , Pantheon Books, page 135,
* 1969 , Howard E. Freeman, Norman R. Kurtz, America's Troubles: A Casebook on Social Conflict , Prentice-Hall, Page 414,
* 2006 , Ray Douglas, America Is Headed for a Fall , AuthorHouse, Page 53,
A ponded package of dung, as in a cow-flop.
* 2000 , Dean King, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales , Henry Holt & Co., Page 162,
* 1960 , Winston Graham, Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787 , Bodley Head, Page 302,
* 2003 , John W. Billheimer, Drybone Hollow , St. Martin's Press, Page 215,
Right, squarely, flat-out.
With a flopping sound.
(computing) A unit of measure of processor speed, being one floating-point operation per second.
As verbs the difference between fail and flop
is that fail is to be unsuccessful while flop is to fall heavily, because lacking energy.As nouns the difference between fail and flop
is that fail is poor quality; substandard workmanship while flop is an incident of a certain type of fall; a plopping down.As an adjective fail
is that is a failure.As an adverb flop is
right, squarely, flat-out.fail
English
Verb
(en verb)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.}}
- There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
- 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 […]
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.}}
- though that seat of earthly bliss be failed
- The crops failed last year.
- as the waters fail from the sea
- Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.
- If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.
- When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .
- A sick man fails .
- had the king in his last sickness failed
- Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's faceAntonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) succeedDerived terms
* failure * fail-safeNoun
- The project was full of fail .
References
* * *flop
English
Etymology 1
Recorded since 1602, probably a variant of (flap) with a duller, heavier soundVerb
(flopp)- He flopped down in front of the television as he was exhausted from work.
- (Charles Dickens)
- The latest album flopped and so the studio canceled her contract.
- It starts with Chris Paul, because Blake didn't really used to flop like that, you know, last year.
- While Stern chastised Vogel for on Thursday calling the Heat "the biggest flopping team in the NBA," he did intimate that he sees merit in the sentiment.
- The brim of a hat flops .
Derived terms
* flophouse * flopover * flopper * floppyNoun
(en noun)- The flop didn't help you but probably did help the other hands.
- Here are six tips to help you play successfully on the flop (the first three communal cards).
- The strength of your hand now has nothing to do with how strong it may have been before the flop .
- They have opened up crypts and basements as immense pads where vagrant and impoverished hippies can flop for the night..
- ... is not just the old material goal of "three hots and a place to flop ," it ....
- Hugh and the boys playing in beautiful settings with beautiful young babes was a far cry from grungy hippies doing it in a filthy flop house, ...
- ... cowpat or cow-flop , Cow dung, often used dry as heating fuel.
- "Maybe as you think," he said, "because as I've the misfortune of an accidental slip on a cow-flop therefore I has the inability of an unborn babe, ...
- "Cow flop in a neat package is still cow flop. What did Cable stand to gain from the flood?"