Word.ws English Dictionary

defail

defail verb: to fail, or cause to fail.

Verb

defail (third-person singular simple present defails, present participle defailing, simple past and past participle defailed)

  1. (obsolete) To fail, or cause to fail.

Forms of defail

third-person singular presentdefails
present participledefailing
past participledefailed
pastdefailed

Origin of defail

French défaillir to fail; prefix dé- (Latin de) + faillir. See fail, and compare default.

Questions about defail

What does defail mean?
Defail means to fail, or cause to fail.
What part of speech is defail?
Defail is a verb.
What is the past tense of defail?
The past tense of defail is defailed.

Words near defail in the dictionary

  1. defaecating
  2. defaecation
  3. defaecations
  4. defaecator
  5. defaecators
  6. defail
  7. defailance
  8. defailances
  9. defailed
  10. defailing
  11. defailment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defail (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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