Fallen

How to spell fallen

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fallen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fallen mean?

1. adjectiveHaving dropped down, collapsed, or been brought low from a higher or better state.
2. verbThe past participle of 'fall', used with 'have' or 'had' to show that a drop or decline has occurred.

Fallen in a sentence

• adjective

  Crews spent the morning clearing a fallen tree from the road.

• verb

  Prices have fallen steadily since the start of the year.

• adjective

  The memorial honours soldiers fallen in the war.

• verb

  By dawn the temperature had fallen below freezing.

Where does fallen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the past participle of 'fall', which descends from the Old English verb feallan, meaning 'to drop down', 'to fail', or 'to die'. That verb belonged to the same Germanic family as Old Norse falla and German fallen, all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning 'to fall'. The participle form fallen, originally feallen, carried the natural sense of something that had already dropped, and from there it widened to describe things laid low in many ways: fallen leaves on the ground, a fallen tree, soldiers fallen in battle, and even a person 'fallen' from grace or reputation. The doubled 'l' in the middle and the simple '-en' ending are the only points worth watching, since the word is otherwise a straightforward old native form. Because it is so common and so phonetic, fallen has kept a remarkably stable spelling for more than a thousand years.

How the word is built

• fall (from Old English feallan: to drop, descend)
• -en (past-participle/adjective suffix)