Word.ws English Dictionary

fallback

/ˈfɔːl.bæk/

fallback noun: an act of falling back. Also the misspelling of fall back.

Noun

fallback (countable and uncountable, plural fallbacks)

  1. An act of falling back.
    • A failure of one of the rocket's first-stage engines just after liftoff would result in a destructive pad fallback.
    • The black hole formed as a result of fallback of ejecta onto the neutron star initially created by the supernova explosion.
  2. A backup plan or contingency strategy; an alternative which can be used if something goes wrong with the main plan; a recourse.
    • As a fallback, I suppose we can use typewriters if the word processing system fails.
    Synonyms:
    back-up, backup
  3. A reduction in bitumen softening point, sometimes called refluxing or overheating, in a relatively closed container.
  4. Pulverised material that falls back to earth after a nuclear explosion; fallout.
    • Particle size distributions of fallback and ejecta were determined principally by mechanical sieving and weighing.1970, Nuclear Science Abstracts, page 3595

Adjective

fallback (not comparable)

  1. That can be resorted to as a fallback.
    • a fallback plan

Also used as

fallback is also the misspelling of fall back.

Synonyms of fallback

All synonyms of fallback

Forms of fallback

pluralfallbacks
alternative formfall-back

Plural of fallback: fallbacks

Origin of fallback

From the verb fall back.

Words formed from fallback

  • fallback font

Questions about fallback

What does fallback mean?
Fallback means an act of falling back.
What part of speech is fallback?
Fallback can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce fallback?
Fallback is pronounced /ˈfɔːl.bæk/.
What is the plural of fallback?
The plural of fallback is fallbacks.

Words near fallback in the dictionary

  1. fallax
  2. fallaxes
  3. fallaxidin
  4. fallaxidins
  5. fallaxin
  6. fallback
  7. fallbacks
  8. fallboard
  9. fallboards
  10. Fallbrook
  11. falldown

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fallback (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fallback.wav.

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