Word Finder - downfall

definition

A precipitous decline in fortune; death or rapid deterioration, as in status or wealth.

example

Many economic and political reasons led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.

synonyms

• doom
• fall

definition

The cause of such a fall; a critical blow or error.

definition

An act of falling down.

example

a downfall of rain

definition

To fall down; deteriorate; decline.

One stroke of luck, however, fell to him before his downfall.

After the downfall of Oldenbarneveldt the office of lands'- advocate was abolished, and a new post, tenable for five years only, was erected in its place with the title of Raad-Pensionaris, or Pensionary of the Council, usually called by English writers.

The attempts of the Federalist party to create a system of internal taxation was a leading cause of its downfall.

He filled the posts successively of censeur royale (1766) and of inspector general of the domains of the crown (1768); he was also one of the chief advisers of the chancellor Maupeou, took part in his struggle against the parlements, and shared in his downfall in 1774.

Bignon, after a short imprisonment at the hands of the allies, returned to France in time to witness the downfall of Napoleon.

Three weeks after his coronation Martin excommunicated the Greek emperor and all his subjects, and allied himself with Charles of Anjou and the Venetians to compass his downfall.

Until 1871 the surplus derived from the colonial budget had been turned into a deficit, and the necessity of imposing fresh taxes to meet the war expenses has led to the downfall both of individual ministries and of cabinets.

A few months later the attempt of Passanante to assassinate King Humbert at Naples (12th of December 1878) caused his downfall, in spite of the courage displayed and the severe wound received by him in protecting the king's person on that occasion.

The immediate cause of Henrys downfall, however, was not his failure to appear in Italy, but his refusal to restore some lands to the bishop of Halberstadt, and it was on this charge that he was summoned before the diet.

After 1526 the downfall of Hungary left Ragusa free; and about this time a great development of art and literature, begun in the 15th century and continued into the 17th, earned for the city its title of the "South Slavonic Athens."

It was the union of the agrarian with the nationalist movements that made the downfall of the Austrian system inevitable.

Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left him the most powerful sovereign in Europe.

In 1806 Magdeburg was taken by the French and annexed to the kingdom of Westphalia, but it was restored to Prussia in 1814, on the downfall of Napoleon.

The muse reassures her, and prophesies the downfall of the tyrant.

The decision caused so much discontent in the Transvaal that it brought about the downfall of President Pretorius and his party; and Thomas Francois Burgers, an educated Dutch minister, resident in Cape Colony, was elected to succeed him.

When the downfall of Burgers was assured and annexation offered itself as the alternative resulting from his downfall, it is true that Kruger opposed it.

This rejection of the advances of the Uitlandersby whose aid he could have built up a free and stable republic - led to his downfall, though the failure of the Jameson Raid in the first days of 1896 gave him a signal opportunity to secure the safety of his country by the grant of real reforms. But the Raid taught him no lesson of this kind, and despite the intervention of the British government the Uitlanders' grievances were not remedied.

He was a member of the Comite de Siirete Generale, and contributed to the downfall of the Girondists.

In Palestine, on the other hand, the downfall of the old monarchies and the infusion of new blood gave fresh life to the land.

When the emperor's downfall appeared imminent, Tigellinus deserted him, and with Nymphidius Sabinus brought about the defection of the praetorians.

After the great man's retirement he entered Parliament as a Liberal Unionist at a byelection in 1895 for Warwick and Leamington - a seat which he held till the Unionist downfall in 1906, returning, however, to the House a few months after the general election as member for St.

But the downfall of Buddhism 'De cline seems to have resulted from natural decay, and from h ismdd- new movements of religious thought, rather than from any general suppression by the sword.

The Afghans of Ghor thus rose to power on the downfall of the Turks of Ghazni.

His early ambition was to conquer the Mahommedan kings of Bijapur and Golconda, who, since the downfall of Vijayanagar, had been practically supreme over the south.

The rapid and signal downfall of the Dutch colonial empire is to be explained by its short-sighted commercial policy.

The proof that prussic acid contains hydrogen but no oxygen was a most important support to the hydrogen-acid theory, and completed the downfall of Lavoisier's oxygen theory;, while the isolation of cyanogen was of equal importance for the subsequent era of compound radicles in organic chemistry.

The artificiality of the limit to the articulation of species was one of the points to which the downfall of Aristotle's influence was largely due.

That impatience of authority to which we owe the Renaissance, the Reformation and the birth of Nationalism, is not stilled by the downfall of Aristotle as the nomen appellativum of the schools.

At the downfall of Robespierre, Paine was restored to his seat in the convention, and served until it adjourned in October 1795.

In the downfall of Jerusalem, the experiences of the exile in Babylon, and the return to Judaea, the nation was transformed into a church.

The Dorians apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the place left vacant by the downfall of Minos's empire, the people of the island, and of the sea coasts generally, adopted from them the Phoenician alphabet.'

On the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 Du Pont became secretary to the provisional government, and on the restoration he was made a councillor of state.

The downfall of the town was accelerated by the illiberal policy of its patrician rulers; and the French Revolution reduced it to such a degree that in 1796 it offered itself and its territories to the king of Prussia on condition that he would pay its debts.

Upon the downfall of the Puritan Commonwealth in the mother country (1660) numerous grievances were presented to King Charles II.

Bernard de Mandeville's Fable of the Bees is unique in that it describes the downfall of an ideal commonwealth.

The downfall of Servia in 1389 left the city without a guardian, and, after being seized and abandoned by Venice and Hungary in turn, it passed under Venetian rule in 1420.

The downfall of the great Greek city sealed the fate of Hellenism in the countries east of the Euphrates.

Agesilaus' success was largely due to Lysander, who hoped to find in him a willing tool for the furtherance of his political designs; in this hope, however, Lysander was disappointed, and the increasing power of Agesilaus soon led to his downfall.

In the troubles that followed Nearchus attached himself to Antigonus, under whom he held the government of his old provinces of Lycia and Pamphylia, and probably therefore shared in the downfall (301) of that monarch.

After the disastrous result of the World War, bringing with it the downfall of the Habsburg Monarchy, it is still more difficult to answer the question whether the path pursued by Aehrenthal in foreign affairs was the right one.

He contributed more than any other man to bring about the downfall and the third partition of Poland, for which he was magnificently recompensed.

In his resistance to the great movement for the exclusion of James from the succession, Charles was aided by moderate men such as Halifax, who desired only a restriction of James's powers, and still more by the violence of the extreme exclusionists themselves, who headed by Shaftesbury brought about their own downfall and that of their cause by their support of the legitimacy and claims of Charles's natural son, the duke of Monmouth.

Besides continuing the great history, he undertook and carried out, during the years between the downfall of Louis Philippe and the final establishment of Napoleon III., an enthusiastic Histoire de la revolution francaise.

After the downfall of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War the Thebans, finding that Sparta intended to protect the states which they desired to annex, broke off the alliance.

For nearly forty years he fought against every improvement in law, or in the constitution - calling God to witness, on the smallest proposal of reform, that he foresaw from it the downfall of his country.

The marriage, celebrated in 1666, caused the downfall both of Castello Melhor and of the king.

Pombal liberated the monarchy from clerical domination, and thus unwittingly opened the door to those " French principles," or democratic ideas, which spread rapidly after his downfall in 1 777 .

It was natural, therefore, that in the series of stormy debates, protracted through several years, that ended in the downfall of Walpole, his eloquence should have been one of the strongest of the forces that combined to bring about the final result.

When Andronicus was dethroned (1328) by his grandson Andronicus III., Gregoras shared his downfall and retired into private life.

Italy was and ever has been a land of cities; and, ever since the downfall of Rome and the decay of the municipal system, the bishops of the cities had really been at the head of the peaceful and industrial part of their population, and were a natural refuge for the oppressed, and sometimes for the mutinous and the evil doers, from the military and civil powers of the duke or count or judge, too often a rule of cruelty or fraud.