intransitive. To fall in amount, intensity, or degree; to decrease, diminish, decline. Also: to collapse, fail, fall into disuse.

Of a person, nation, institution: To decline in power, importance, prosperity, or renown.

intransitive. To descend from a position of high status, wealth, excellence, etc. Frequently with from, as to fall from glory (prosperity, favour,…

figurative. To take a backward or downward course; to decay, decline; to fade or waste away. Also with away, down, off, out.

intransitive. To change for the worse, deteriorate; to decline in prosperity. Cf. to go backwards at phrasal verbs 1.

intransitive. To change for the worse, deteriorate; to decline in health or prosperity; to collapse or die.

To decline from prosperity or fortune.

intransitive. Of a person, group, etc.: to give way under (also beneath) misfortune, affliction, etc.; to be weighed down or crushed.

intransitive. To fall or slip down, descend, sink. literal and figurative.

In extended use. intransitive. To waver; to recoil or draw away from (a state, condition, course of action, belief, etc.). Obsolete.

figurative. To fall off or fail in force, vigour, or vitality; to decay, wane, diminish, decrease; to fall from prosperity or excellence, to…

intransitive. = to go backward at phrasal verbs 1.

intransitive. To fall, decline.

transferred and figurative. To flag, fail, decay.

intransitive. To be reduced to a state of complete personal, social, or financial loss; to be overwhelmed by failure. Obsolete.

figurative. To decline, wane.

To fall away by slow degrees; to pass or sink gradually through absence of effort or sustaining influence. Also with away, back, out. Constr. from…

esp. in to break (new) ground, to make progress in a new direction (see break, v. phrases 3c); to gain (also gather, get) ground: to advance…

pigs and whistles n. fragments, pieces; odds and ends, trivial things. to go to pigs and whistles: to fall into ruin or disrepair. Now rare.

to come (also go) down in the world.

intransitive. slang. To die; (formerly also) †to be ruined (obsolete).

To incur the privation of (something that one possesses or has control of); to part with through… To fail to maintain (a position, a state of mind…

intransitive. To succumb or be overwhelmed in the struggle for survival; to drop out of sight or knowledge.

intransitive. figurative. To slide or decline swiftly; to hurtle (to, towards, or into some state or condition).

Of a person: to fall away from a standard (in behaviour or achievement); to deteriorate; to lose one's command of things. Chiefly as present parti…

intransitive. Of business or economic activity: to decline, worsen. Cf. downturn, n. 2.