| failure | | |
| n. (act) | 1. failure | an act that fails.; "his failure to pass the test" |
| ~ nonaccomplishment, nonachievement | an act that does not achieve its intended goal. |
| ~ flunk, failing | failure to reach a minimum required performance.; "his failing the course led to his disqualification"; "he got two flunks on his report" |
| ~ naught | complete failure.; "all my efforts led to naught" |
| ~ loss | the act of losing someone or something.; "everyone expected him to win so his loss was a shock" |
| ~ backsliding, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reverting, lapse, reversion | a failure to maintain a higher state. |
| ~ misplay, error | (baseball) a failure of a defensive player to make an out when normal play would have sufficed. |
| ~ out | (baseball) a failure by a batter or runner to reach a base safely in baseball.; "you only get 3 outs per inning" |
| ~ nonconformance, nonconformity | failure to conform to accepted standards of behavior. |
| ~ nonpayment, nonremittal, default | act of failing to meet a financial obligation. |
| n. (event) | 2. failure | an event that does not accomplish its intended purpose.; "the surprise party was a complete failure" |
| ~ happening, natural event, occurrence, occurrent | an event that happens. |
| ~ downfall, ruination, ruin | failure that results in a loss of position or reputation. |
| ~ flame-out | a complete or conspicuous failure.; "the spectacular flame-out of the company's stock cost many people their life savings" |
| ~ malfunction | a failure to function normally. |
| ~ miscarriage, abortion | failure of a plan. |
| ~ misfire, miss | a failure to hit (or meet or find etc). |
| ~ bust, fizzle, flop | a complete failure.; "the play was a dismal flop" |
| ~ miscreation, malformation | something abnormal or anomalous. |
| ~ equipment failure, breakdown | a cessation of normal operation.; "there was a power breakdown" |
| ~ defeat, licking | an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest.; "it was a narrow defeat"; "the army's only defeat"; "they suffered a convincing licking" |
| n. (state) | 3. failure | lack of success.; "he felt that his entire life had been a failure"; "that year there was a crop failure" |
| ~ circumstances, luck, destiny, fate, fortune, lot, portion | your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you).; "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" |
| ~ bankruptcy | a state of complete lack of some abstract property.; "spiritual bankruptcy"; "moral bankruptcy"; "intellectual bankruptcy" |
| ~ bank failure | the inability of a bank to meet its credit obligations. |
| ~ crop failure | the failure of crops to produce a marketable surplus. |
| ~ dead duck | something doomed to failure.; "he finally admitted that the legislation was a dead duck"; "the idea of another TV channel is now a dead duck"; "as theories go, that's a dead duck" |
| n. (person) | 4. failure, loser, nonstarter, unsuccessful person | a person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently. |
| ~ unfortunate, unfortunate person | a person who suffers misfortune. |
| ~ bankrupt, insolvent | someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts. |
| ~ flash in the pan | someone who enjoys transient success but then fails. |
| ~ dud, flop, washout | someone who is unsuccessful. |
| ~ underdog | one at a disadvantage and expected to lose. |
| n. (act) | 5. failure | an unexpected omission.; "he resented my failure to return his call"; "the mechanic's failure to check the brakes" |
| ~ dashing hopes, disappointment | an act (or failure to act) that disappoints someone. |
| ~ breach | a failure to perform some promised act or obligation. |
| ~ copout | a failure to face some difficulty squarely. |
| ~ omission, skip | a mistake resulting from neglect. |
| n. (state) | 6. bankruptcy, failure | inability to discharge all your debts as they come due.; "the company had to declare bankruptcy"; "fraudulent loans led to the failure of many banks" |
| ~ insolvency | the lack of financial resources. |
| n. (state) | 7. failure | loss of ability to function normally.; "kidney failure" |
| ~ disorder, upset | a physical condition in which there is a disturbance of normal functioning.; "the doctor prescribed some medicine for the disorder"; "everyone gets stomach upsets from time to time" |
| ~ coronary failure, heart failure | inability of the heart to pump enough blood to sustain normal bodily functions. |
| ~ kidney failure, renal failure | inability of the kidneys to excrete wastes and to help maintain the electrolyte balance. |
| frustration | | |
| n. (feeling) | 1. defeat, frustration | the feeling that accompanies an experience of being thwarted in attaining your goals. |
| ~ disappointment, letdown | a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized.; "his hopes were so high he was doomed to disappointment" |
| n. (act) | 2. foiling, frustration, thwarting | an act of hindering someone's plans or efforts. |
| ~ interference, hinderance, hindrance | the act of hindering or obstructing or impeding. |
| n. (feeling) | 3. frustration | a feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized.; "her constant complaints were the main source of his frustration" |
| ~ vexation, annoyance, chafe | anger produced by some annoying irritation. |
| omission | | |
| n. (act) | 1. omission, skip | a mistake resulting from neglect. |
| ~ failure | an unexpected omission.; "he resented my failure to return his call"; "the mechanic's failure to check the brakes" |
| ~ error, fault, mistake | a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention.; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults" |
| n. (state) | 2. omission | something that has been omitted.; "she searched the table for omissions" |
| ~ disuse, neglect | the state of something that has been unused and neglected.; "the house was in a terrible state of neglect" |
| n. (process) | 3. deletion, omission | any process whereby sounds or words are left out of spoken words or phrases. |
| ~ aphaeresis, apheresis | (linguistics) omission at the beginning of a word as in `coon' for `raccoon' or `till' for `until'. |
| ~ aphesis | the gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed) vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire'. |
| ~ elision | omission of a sound between two words (usually a vowel and the end of one word or the beginning of the next). |
| ~ eclipsis, ellipsis | omission or suppression of parts of words or sentences. |
| ~ linguistic process | a process involved in human language. |
| n. (cognition) | 4. omission | neglecting to do something; leaving out or passing over something. |
| ~ disregard, neglect | lack of attention and due care. |
| ~ inadvertence, oversight | an unintentional omission resulting from failure to notice something. |
| ~ pretermission | letting pass without notice. |
| ~ exception, elision, exclusion | a deliberate act of omission.; "with the exception of the children, everyone was told the news" |
| fail | | |
| v. (social) | 1. fail, neglect | fail to do something; leave something undone.; "She failed to notice that her child was no longer in his crib"; "The secretary failed to call the customer and the company lost the account" |
| ~ lose track | fail to keep informed or aware.; "She has so many books, she just lost track and cannot find this volume" |
| ~ strike out | put out or be put out by a strikeout.; "Oral struck out three batters to close the inning" |
| ~ default, default on | fail to pay up. |
| ~ choke | fail to perform adequately due to tension or agitation.; "The team should have won hands down but choked, disappointing the coach and the audience" |
| ~ muff | fail to catch, as of a ball. |
| ~ miss | fail to attend an event or activity.; "I missed the concert"; "He missed school for a week" |
| v. (social) | 2. fail, go wrong, miscarry | be unsuccessful.; "Where do today's public schools fail?"; "The attempt to rescue the hostages failed miserably" |
| ~ take it on the chin | undergo failure or defeat. |
| ~ miss | fail to reach or get to.; "She missed her train" |
| ~ overreach | fail by aiming too high or trying too hard. |
| ~ ball up, bobble, bodge, bollix, bollix up, bollocks, bollocks up, botch, botch up, bumble, bungle, flub, fluff, foul up, fuck up, louse up, mess up, mishandle, muck up, spoil, muff, screw up, fumble, blow | make a mess of, destroy or ruin.; "I botched the dinner and we had to eat out"; "the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement" |
| ~ strike out | be unsuccessful in an endeavor.; "The candidate struck out with his health care plan" |
| ~ fall | suffer defeat, failure, or ruin.; "We must stand or fall"; "fall by the wayside" |
| ~ shipwreck | suffer failure, as in some enterprise. |
| ~ fall flat, fall through, founder, flop | fail utterly; collapse.; "The project foundered" |
| v. (emotion) | 3. betray, fail | disappoint, prove undependable to; abandon, forsake.; "His sense of smell failed him this time"; "His strength finally failed him"; "His children failed him in the crisis" |
| ~ disappoint, let down | fail to meet the hopes or expectations of.; "Her boyfriend let her down when he did not propose marriage" |
| v. (change) | 4. break, break down, conk out, die, fail, give out, give way, go, go bad | stop operating or functioning.; "The engine finally went"; "The car died on the road"; "The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town"; "The coffee maker broke"; "The engine failed on the way to town"; "her eyesight went after the accident" |
| ~ change | undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature.; "She changed completely as she grew older"; "The weather changed last night" |
| ~ break | render inoperable or ineffective.; "You broke the alarm clock when you took it apart!" |
| ~ buy the farm, cash in one's chips, croak, decease, die, drop dead, give-up the ghost, kick the bucket, pass away, perish, snuff it, expire, pop off, conk, exit, choke, go, pass | pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life.; "She died from cancer"; "The children perished in the fire"; "The patient went peacefully"; "The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102" |
| ~ go down, crash | stop operating.; "My computer crashed last night"; "The system goes down at least once a week" |
| ~ blow out, burn out, blow | melt, break, or become otherwise unusable.; "The lightbulbs blew out"; "The fuse blew" |
| ~ misfire | fail to fire or detonate.; "The guns misfired" |
| ~ malfunction, misfunction | fail to function or function improperly.; "the coffee maker malfunctioned" |
| v. (social) | 5. fail | be unable.; "I fail to understand your motives" |
| v. (social) | 6. fail | judge unacceptable.; "The teacher failed six students" |
| ~ pass judgment, evaluate, judge | form a critical opinion of.; "I cannot judge some works of modern art"; "How do you evaluate this grant proposal?"; "We shouldn't pass judgment on other people" |
| ~ flunk, flush it, bomb, fail | fail to get a passing grade.; "She studied hard but failed nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test?" |
| v. (social) | 7. bomb, fail, flunk, flush it | fail to get a passing grade.; "She studied hard but failed nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test?" |
| ~ fail | fall short in what is expected.; "She failed in her obligations as a good daughter-in-law"; "We must not fail his obligation to the victims of the Holocaust" |
| ~ fail | judge unacceptable.; "The teacher failed six students" |
| v. (social) | 8. fail | fall short in what is expected.; "She failed in her obligations as a good daughter-in-law"; "We must not fail his obligation to the victims of the Holocaust" |
| ~ flunk, flush it, bomb, fail | fail to get a passing grade.; "She studied hard but failed nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test?" |
| v. (possession) | 9. fail | become bankrupt or insolvent; fail financially and close.; "The toy company went bankrupt after the competition hired cheap Mexican labor"; "A number of banks failed that year" |
| v. (change) | 10. fail, give out, run out | prove insufficient.; "The water supply for the town failed after a long drought" |
| v. (change) | 11. fail | get worse.; "Her health is declining" |
| ~ decline, worsen | grow worse.; "Conditions in the slum worsened" |
| foil | | |
| n. (artifact) | 1. foil | a piece of thin and flexible sheet metal.; "the photographic film was wrapped in foil" |
| ~ aluminium foil, aluminum foil, tin foil | foil made of aluminum. |
| ~ chaff | foil in thin strips; ejected into the air as a radar countermeasure. |
| ~ gold foil | foil made of gold. |
| ~ sheet metal | sheet of metal formed into a thin plate. |
| ~ tin foil, tinfoil | foil made of tin or an alloy of tin and lead. |
| n. (cognition) | 2. enhancer, foil | anything that serves by contrast to call attention to another thing's good qualities.; "pretty girls like plain friends as foils" |
| ~ attention | a general interest that leads people to want to know more.; "She was the center of attention" |
| n. (artifact) | 3. foil, hydrofoil | a device consisting of a flat or curved piece (as a metal plate) so that its surface reacts to the water it is passing through.; "the fins of a fish act as hydrofoils" |
| ~ device | an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose.; "the device is small enough to wear on your wrist"; "a device intended to conserve water" |
| n. (artifact) | 4. foil, transparency | picture consisting of a positive photograph or drawing on a transparent base; viewed with a projector. |
| ~ ikon, picture, icon, image | a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface.; "they showed us the pictures of their wedding"; "a movie is a series of images projected so rapidly that the eye integrates them" |
| ~ lantern slide, slide | a transparency mounted in a frame; viewed with a slide projector. |
| ~ viewgraph, overhead | a transparency for use with an overhead projector. |
| n. (artifact) | 5. foil | a light slender flexible sword tipped by a button. |
| ~ fencing | the art or sport of fighting with swords (especially the use of foils or epees or sabres to score points under a set of rules). |
| ~ fencing sword | a sword used in the sport of fencing. |
| v. (stative) | 6. foil | enhance by contrast.; "In this picture, the figures are foiled against the background" |
| ~ counterpoint, contrast | to show differences when compared; be different.; "the students contrast considerably in their artistic abilities" |
| v. (social) | 7. baffle, bilk, cross, foil, frustrate, queer, scotch, spoil, thwart | hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of.; "What ultimately frustrated every challenger was Ruth's amazing September surge"; "foil your opponent" |
| ~ disappoint, let down | fail to meet the hopes or expectations of.; "Her boyfriend let her down when he did not propose marriage" |
| ~ foreclose, forestall, preclude, prevent, forbid | keep from happening or arising; make impossible.; "My sense of tact forbids an honest answer"; "Your role in the projects precludes your involvement in the competitive project" |
| ~ dash | destroy or break.; "dashed ambitions and hopes" |
| ~ short-circuit | hamper the progress of; impede.; "short-circuit warm feelings" |
| ~ ruin | destroy or cause to fail.; "This behavior will ruin your chances of winning the election" |
| v. (contact) | 8. foil | cover or back with foil.; "foil mirrors" |
| ~ cover | provide with a covering or cause to be covered.; "cover her face with a handkerchief"; "cover the child with a blanket"; "cover the grave with flowers" |
| frustrate | | |
| v. (emotion) | 1. bedevil, crucify, dun, frustrate, rag, torment | treat cruelly.; "The children tormented the stuttering teacher" |
| ~ madden | drive up the wall; go on someone's nerves. |
| ~ beset, chevvy, chevy, chivvy, chivy, harass, harry, hassle, molest, plague, provoke | annoy continually or chronically.; "He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked"; "This man harasses his female co-workers" |
| ~ hamstring | make ineffective or powerless.; "The teachers were hamstrung by the overly rigid schedules" |
| ~ badger, beleaguer, bug, pester, tease | annoy persistently.; "The children teased the boy because of his stammer" |
| ~ persecute, oppress | cause to suffer.; "Jews were persecuted in the former Soviet Union" |
| frustrate | | |
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