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.

Verb

To understand wrongly, taking one thing for another, or someone for someone else.

Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.

* Shakespeare

My father's purposes have been mistook .

* Johnson

A man may mistake the love of virtue for the practice of it.

To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.

* Jonathan Swift

Servants mistake , and sometimes occasion misunderstanding among friends.

(obsolete, rare) To take or choose wrongly.

(Shakespeare)