crestfallen
UK/ˈkɹɛstfɔːlən//ˈkɹɛstfɔlən/
crestfallen adjective: sad because of a disappointment.
Adjective
crestfallen (comparative more crestfallen, superlative most crestfallen)
- Sad because of a disappointment.
- Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed and crestfallen.1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XII, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 112
- Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […])...
- Synonyms:
- disappointed, disillusioned
- Having the crest, or upper part of the neck, hanging to one side.
crestfallen meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
crestfallen in Tamil
- அவமதிப்படைந்த, தலை குனிவு
crestfallen in Urdu
- ہارا ہوا
crestfallen in Malayalam
- downcast, downheart-ed, despondent
- തലതാഴ്ത്തിയ, അവാക്ശിരസ്സ്, അവാങ്മുഖ, താഴത്തേക്കു മുഖമായ, ആനത, അധോമുഖ
crestfallen in Kannada
- ಪೆಚ್ಚಾದ, ಆಶಾಭಂಗವಾದ, ನಿರಾಶೆಗೊಂಡ, ಜೋಲುಮುಖದ, ತೇಜೋವಧೆಗೊಂಡ, ಖಿನ್ನ
Examples of crestfallen in a sentence
- So Hall and Henfrey, rather crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to her.1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 12, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers...
- 'He did it awfully well,' said the crestfallen Rat.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 6, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
- And we can sense that, though permanently crestfallen, there is something in his nature, which makes him accept solitude, that is rather fearless.1995, Roger Lewis, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, page 743:
- Brother Gáeth was a tall man with almost ugly features and a permanently crestfallen expression that made the elderly abbot immediately feel guilty that he had spoken so roughly.2011, Peter Tremayne, The Chalice of Blood: A Mystery of Ancient Ireland, page 9:
Synonyms of crestfallen
Forms of crestfallen
| comparative | more crestfallen |
|---|---|
| superlative | most crestfallen |
Origin of crestfallen
From crest + fallen, from the appearance of a horse with its crest (head) on its chest after defeat in a battle.
Words formed from crestfallen
- crest-fall
- crestfallenly
- crestfallenness
Questions about crestfallen
- What does crestfallen mean?
- Crestfallen means sad because of a disappointment.
- What is crestfallen in Tamil?
- Crestfallen in Tamil is அவமதிப்படைந்த, தலை குனிவு. See Crestfallen meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use crestfallen in a sentence?
- So Hall and Henfrey, rather crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to her.
- What part of speech is crestfallen?
- Crestfallen is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce crestfallen?
- Crestfallen is pronounced /ˈkɹɛstfɔːlən/ (UK).
Words near crestfallen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: crestfallen (page history and authors); crestfallen (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crestfallen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crestfallen (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); crestfallen (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-crestfallen.ogg, en-au-crestfallen.ogg.
Cite this entry: “crestfallen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crestfallen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.