Failed
verbDid not succeed in achieving an aim, or stopped working as intended.
How to spell failed
6 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce failed
What does failed mean?
- verbDid not succeed in achieving an aim, or stopped working as intended.
- adjectiveDescribing something that has been unsuccessful or has collapsed.
Failed in a sentence
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verb
The engine failed halfway through the test drive.
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adjective
The failed business left dozens of suppliers unpaid.
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verb
He failed the exam despite weeks of revision.
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adjective
Investigators examined the failed brake system on the truck.
Where does failed come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This is the past form of the verb 'fail', which English took from the Old French 'faillir', meaning 'to be lacking' or 'to come up short'. That word traces back to the Latin 'fallere', which literally meant 'to deceive' or 'to disappoint', and which is also the ancestor of words like 'false', 'fallacy', and 'fault'. The sense gradually softened from active deception into the more passive idea of falling short or not succeeding, which is how we use it today. English adopted the verb in the 1200s, and the regular '-ed' ending was simply attached to form the past tense and participle, giving 'failed'. The spelling stays predictable here: the silent-vowel cluster 'ai' carries over directly from the base word, and the '-ed' is added without any change to the stem.
How the word is built
- fail (from Latin fallere: to deceive, disappoint)
- -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)
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