Definition

1. Noun:
   • A sudden loss of power, prosperity, or status; a ruin or collapse: A downfall is a rapid decline from a position of success or importance, often resulting in complete failure or ruin.
   • A cause of such a sudden loss or ruin: The thing or person that directly causes the collapse.
   • (Meteorology) The act of falling down; precipitation: The falling of rain, snow, hail, or other forms of water from the sky.

Examples of Usage

• Noun (Loss of power/status):
  • His arrogance was his downfall. (His arrogance was the cause of his ruin.)
  • The scandal led to the politician's complete downfall.
• Noun (Precipitation):
  • The heavy downfall flooded the streets. (The heavy rainfall flooded the streets.)

Advanced Usage

• "To be someone's downfall": To be the specific cause of someone's ruin.
  • Greed proved to be the businessman's downfall.
• "A dramatic downfall": Emphasizes a sudden and severe collapse.
  • The film depicts the king's dramatic downfall.

Variants and Related Words

• Downfallen (adj, archaic): Having suffered a downfall; ruined.
  • The downfallen tyrant lived in exile.

Synonyms

• Collapse: A sudden failure or breakdown.
• Ruin: The physical or moral destruction or collapse of something.
• Undoing: A cause of someone's failure or ruin.
• Precipitation (for the meteorological sense): Rain, snow, sleet, or hail that falls to the ground.

Related Phrases

• "Pride comes before a downfall": An idiom meaning that being overconfident or arrogant often leads to failure.
  • He ignored all advice, proving that pride comes before a downfall.

Noun

1. a sudden decline in strength or number or importance
   • the fall of the House of Hapsburg
2. the falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist)
3. failure that results in a loss of position or reputation