fall away
See also: fallaway
English
Verb
fall away (third-person singular simple present falls away, present participle falling away, simple past fell away, past participle fallen away)
- (intransitive) To cease to support a person or cause.
- After the divorce, all his friends fell away one by one.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 8:13:
- These […] for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
- (intransitive) To diminish in size, weight, or intensity.
- 1697, Joseph Addison, Essay on Virgil's Georgics:
- One colour falls away by just degrees, and another rises insensibly.
- 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wreccker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51:
- While long-distance and commuter rail travel still fared well, train travel to seaside resorts was perhaps inevitably falling away.
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- To perish; to vanish; to be lost.
- 1711 July 18 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison; Richard Steele [et al.], “SATURDAY, July 7, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 111; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
- How […] can the soul […] fall away into nothing?
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- To get worse. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
Derived terms
- fall-away, fallaway
- falling away
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