Word Finder - fails

definition

Poor quality; substandard workmanship.

example

The project was full of fail.

definition

A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)

definition

A failure (something incapable of success)

definition

A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).

definition

A failing grade in an academic examination.

definition

To be unsuccessful.

example

Throughout my life, I have always failed.

definition

Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)

example

The truck failed to start.

definition

To neglect.

example

The report fails to take into account all the mitigating factors.

definition

Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly.

example

After running five minutes, the engine failed.

definition

To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.

definition

To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.

example

I failed English last year.

definition

To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.

example

The professor failed me because I did not complete any of the course assignments.

definition

To miss attaining; to lose.

definition

To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.

example

The crops failed last year.

definition

To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of.

definition

To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.

definition

To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.

example

A sick man fails.

definition

To perish; to die; used of a person.

definition

To err in judgment; to be mistaken.

definition

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.

definition

A piece of turf cut from grassland.

Because if it fails, it costs you nothing.

Even a bird is smart enough to push the fledgling out of the nest when it fails to fly on its own.

Madness if it fails.

If it fails, you could be in big trouble.

The third account fails chiefly in being too plausible, but there seems no reason to reject it as an artificial combination of unconnected facts.

It is true that our best authority, Arrian, fails to substantiate the traditional view satisfactorily; on the other hand those who maintain it urge that Arrian's interests were mainly military, and that the other authorities, if inferior in trustworthiness, are completer in range of vision.

He is appointed watchman to warn men when they sin, and is to be held responsible for the consequences if he fails in this duty.

But the Christian bias is sure to make theologians, who borrow a doctrine of the Absolute, interpret it in a Christian sense; hence we may consider it something of an accident that even an Augustine fails exactly to put the argument in form.

Browning reasons as far as he can; if reasoning fails him, he gives a leap of faith.

Further, no theory of calciolous and calcifugous plants can be regarded as satisfactory which fails to account for the fact that both kinds of plants occur among aquatic as well as among terrestrial plants.

If it fails - there are other channels; character can be known and trusted even when we are baffled by a thing necessarily so full of mystery as the development of a personality.

When that fails me I shall be nothing, and another will succeed me."

This explanation, poor as it is, fails, however, in regard to some species.

He was wanting in mathematical ability, and never displayed in any remarkable degree the still more important power of scientific generalization, which, whether accompanied by mathematical skill or not, never fails to mark the highest genius in physical science.

Its political leaders in the House of Delegates are restive under the control exercised by the Executive Council, but an attempt to hold up necessary appropriations resulted in the passage in July 1909 of an act continuing the appropriations of the previous year, whenever for any cause the lower house fails to pass the necessary financial legislation.

This never fails to produce Dumoutier.

This method of solution fails when the discriminant R vanishes, for then the Hessian has equal roots, as also the cubic f.

Although the amended theory as worked out by Maxwell is in rough agreement with certain leading phenomena of magnetization, it fails to account for many others, and is in some cases at variance with observed facts.

The method indeed fails for equations of an order above the fourth, because it then involves the solution of an equation of higher dimensions than they proposed.

The analogy between the two fails to hold good in another respect also.

Again, a fractured bone in a paralysed limb often fails to unite, while another in the opposite sound limb unites readily, and an ulcerated surface on a paralysed limb shows little healing reaction.

As the cell fails and shrinks, so does it become more and more unable to make good the waste due to metabolism.

In metal mines, however, artificial ventilation is rarely attempted, and natural ventilation often fails to furnish a sufficient quantity of air.

It lacks for the moment the interest of freshness; it is like a wonderful picture seen so constantly that it fails any longer to concentrate attention.

In the last resort, therefore, Spencer fails to deduce philosophically not only the necessity of progress, but also its compatibility with the evolution-dissolution oscillation, and even the general possibility of conceiving the world as a process.

But when the scryers see details of various sorts, which are unknown to the inquirer, but are verified on inquiry, then telepathy perhaps fails to provide an explanation.

As a rule, if a person has the faculty he "sees" at the first attempt; if he fails in.

This method of reckoning time is more convenient than those which employ cycles or periods of any length whatever; but it still fails to satisfy in the simplest manner possible all the conditions that are necessary for registering the succession of events.

Somewhere, in actual life, the stress of craft and courage acting on the springs of human vice and weakness fails, unless the hero of the comedy or tragedy, Callimaco or Cesare, allows for the revolt of healthier instincts.

Such a theory as that just mentioned hopelessly fails to account for the linguistic unity of the book.

A weight is moved along the arm of one of the beams until it just keeps the brake steady midway between the stops which must be provided to hold it when the weight fails to do so.

Under section 6, where a reference is to two arbitrators, one to be appointed by each party, and either the appointed arbitrator refuses to act, or becomes incapable of acting, and the party appointing him fails, after seven clear days' notice, to supply the vacancy, or such party fails, after similar notice, to make an original appointment, a binding appointment (subject to the power of the court to set it aside) may be made by the other party to the reference.

But this doctrine of relativity really involves a condemnation of our knowledge (and of all knowledge), because it fails to realize an impossible and self-contradictory ideal.

However often the tree may be cut down it never fails to grow again.

A second objection urged, perhaps with less justice, against the theory is that it fails to account for the made his tour in 1773, whilst Hume's death did not take place till 1776.

If suitable values are chosen for these constants, the formula can be made to represent the dispersion of ordinary transparent media within the visible spectrum very well, but when extended to the infra-red region it often departs considerably from the truth, and it fails altogether in cases of anomalous dispersion.

On the other hand, if the landowner fails within twenty-one days after receipt of the notice to treat to give the particulars which it requires, the promoters may proceed to exercise their compulsory powers and to obtain assessment of the compensation to be paid.

If a money-lender fails to register himself, or if he carries on a money-lending business otherwise than in his registered name, or in more names than one, or elsewhere than at his registered address, he is liable on summary conviction to a fine, not exceeding one hundred pounds.

The fundamental objection to empiricism is that it fails to give an accurate explanation of experience; individual impressions as such are momentary, and their connexion into a body of coherent knowledge presupposes mental action distinct from mere receptivity.

But he fails to show that a substance is one and many in the same respect, and that motion requires a body to be in two places at the same moment of one time.

But here he fails exactly as Darwin himself failed.

Balfour says, given that men believe in Nature, they will survive; but he fails to show how they come to believe in it.

The latter part of this theory fails to explain why the Pauline origin was not made more obvious, e.g.

The Australian or " Massachusetts " ballot, adopted in 1891 under a law which fails to require personal registration, by a provision like that in Nebraska makes it easy to vote a straight ticket; party names are arranged on the ballot according to the number of votes secured by each party at the last preceding election.

If the supply of ice fails first the temperature will rise, and, since solid salt remains, we pass along a curve OA giving the relation between temperature and the vapour pressure of the saturated solution.

If, on the other hand, the salt of the cryohydrate fails before the ice the water given by the continued fusion dilutes the solution, and we pass along the curve OB which shows the freezing points of a series of solutions of constantly increasing dilution.

At all times and in all lands, if he reflects upon death at all, he fails to understand it as a natural phenomenon;.

The genuine evidence at our command altogether fails to support this view.

Private charities have always occupied a distinguished position in the Netherlands, and the principle of the law of 1854 concerning the relief of the poor is, that the state shall only interfere when private charity fails.

It is almost superfluous to remark, first, that Hume here deliberately gives up his fundamental principle that ideas are but the fainter copies of impressions, for it can never be maintained that order of disposition is an impression, and, secondly, that he fails to offer any explanation of the mode in which coexistence and succession are possible elements, of cognition in a conscious experience made up of isolated presentations and representations.