Word.ws English Dictionary

befall

UK/bɪˈfɔːl//bɪˈfɔl/

befall verb: to fall upon; fall all over; overtake.

Verb

befall (third-person singular simple present befalls, present participle befalling, simple past befell, past participle befallen)

  1. (transitive) To fall upon; fall all over; overtake.
    • At dusk an unusual calm befalls the wetlands.
  2. (intransitive) To happen.
    • It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon [...] that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long time.1485 July, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter I, in William Caxton, editor, Le Morte D’Arthur, volume 1
    Synonyms:
    come to pass
  3. (transitive) To happen to.
    • Temptation befell me.
    • But as soon as her son espied her, bowl in hand, he thought that haply something untoward had befallen her, but he would not ask of aught until such time as she had set down the bowl, when she acquainted him with that which had occurred[…]1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […]...
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To fall.
    • With a thought I tooke for Maudline
      & a cruse of cockle pottage.
      with a thing thus tall, skie blesse you all:
      I befell into this dotage.c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)

Noun

befall (plural befalls)

  1. Case; instance; circumstance; event; incident; accident.
    • Or he had tolde al his befall.1495, William Caxton, Vitas Patrum
    • This is proposed to be done by moving necessary amendment in this befall to the Finance Bill.1990, India. Parliament. House of the People, India. Parliament. Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha debates

befall meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

befall in Tamil

நிகழ், நேரிடு, நேர், நேர்படு, வந்தெய்து

befall in Marathi

to befall, be affected by
येणे yeṇe

befall in Urdu

آ پڑنا, عارض ہونا, بیتنا, نازل ہونا, اترنا, وارد ہونا

befall in Bengali

ঘটা, আপতিত হওয়া, কোনো কিছুর শিকার হওয়া
More languagesFewer languages
befall in Telugu
మూడు mūḍu
befall in Malayalam
പിണയുക, ആകുക, സംഭവിക്കുമാറാകുക, വന്നുഭവിക്കുക
befall in Kannada
ಆಗು, ಸಂಭವಿಸು, ತಾನಾಗಿ ಆಗು, ಘಟಿಸು
befall in Gujarati
પડવું paḍvũ
befall in Sanskrit
विश् viś
befall in Nepali
पर्नु parnu
befall in Indonesian
terjadi pada

Examples of befall in a sentence

  • I beseech your grace that I may know / The worst that may befall me.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
  • As we’ve said before, with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s.2013 April 15, Walter Russell Mead, “The Wreck of the Euro”, in The American Interest, retrieved 16 Apr 2013:
  • This wasn't the last tragedy to befall Reading.2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Reading (1840)”, in Rail, number 947, page 57:
  • I will not commit the crime of making them helpless by saying that they have no responsibility whatever in the befall of calamities like old age, illness, accident, etc. …"1994, Socialist Party (India), Janata: Volume 49

All 14 example sentences with befall

Synonyms of befall

Forms of befall

Verb
third-person singular presentbefalls
present participlebefalling
pastbefell
past participlebefallen
Noun
pluralbefalls

Past tense of befall: befell

Origin of befall

From Middle English bifallen, from Old English befeallan, from Proto-West Germanic *bifallan, from Proto-Germanic *bifallaną; equivalent to be- + fall.

Words formed from befall

Words that rhyme with befall

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about befall

What does befall mean?
Befall means to fall upon; fall all over; overtake.
What is befall in Tamil?
Befall in Tamil is நிகழ், நேரிடு, நேர். See Befall meaning in Tamil.
How do you use befall in a sentence?
I beseech your grace that I may know / The worst that may befall me.
What part of speech is befall?
Befall can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce befall?
Befall is pronounced /bɪˈfɔːl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of befall?
The past tense of befall is befell.

Words near befall in the dictionary

  1. BEF
  2. bef.
  3. befal
  4. befalen
  5. befaling
  6. befall
  7. befallen
  8. befalleth
  9. befalling
  10. befallings
  11. befalls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: befall (page history and authors); befall (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); येणे (Marathi) (page history and authors); befall (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); befall (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); befall (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); befall (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); પડવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); विश् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-befall.ogg.

Cite this entry: “befall.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/befall. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.