Word.ws English Dictionary

fails upwards

fails upwards is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fail upwards.

Meaning of fail upwards

Verb

fail upwards (third-person singular simple present fails upwards, present participle failing upwards, simple past and past participle failed upwards)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To advance in one's career despite failure or incompetence.
    • I got trapped in an absurd, "failing upwards" trajectory. Heathers got me work on a bigger film called Ford Fairlane. When that movie failed, I was given a post on an even bigger film, Hudson Hawk. After that one really, really failed, I was rewarded with the assignment of Batman Returns.1994, Gail O'Donnell, Michele Travolta, Making it in Hollywood: behind the success of 50 of today's favorite actors, screenwriters, producers, and directors, Sourcebooks, →ISBN, page 139

Questions about fails upwards

What is fails upwards the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Fails upwards is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fail upwards.

Words near fails upwards in the dictionary

  1. fails over
  2. fails safe
  3. fails up
  4. fails up the ladder
  5. fails upward
  6. fails upwards
  7. failsafe
  8. failsafed
  9. failsafes
  10. failsafing
  11. failsoft

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fails upwards (page history and authors); fail upwards (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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