fallen

UK/ˈfɔːlən/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/ˈfaːlən/

fallen is the past participle of fall.

Adjective

fallen (not generally comparable, comparative more fallen, superlative most fallen or (uncommon) fallenest)

(not comparable, usually) Having dropped by the force of gravity.
- fallen raindrops
(not comparable, usually) Killed, especially in battle.
- a ceremony to honor fallen soldiers
- the disposal of fallen livestock
(not comparable, usually) Having lost one's chastity.
- a fallen woman
- Madam Julia was the town's ranking prostitute; virtuous female society demanded that they not suffer the unbearable pain of looking at, and being in company with, a fallen woman— one of the happiest, fallenest women in history, by the way.1964, Katharine Hillyer, Mark Twain, Young Reporter in Virginia City: The Racy, Rollicking Adventures of a Great Author in the Gamiest, Richest, Mightiest Town in All the Frontier West!
(not comparable, usually) Having collapsed.
- a fallen building
Synonyms:

collapsed
(not comparable, usually) Having lost prestige, (Christian) grace, etc.
- That fallenest of our fallen race has left town — said to be near Fontainebleau by some, in Italy by others. More consequent with himself than usual, he is fulfilling, in the only possible way left open to him, his promise […]1913, John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life: 1867-1871, page 397

fallen (plural fallen)

(plural, plural-only) The dead.
(plural, plural-only) Casualties of battle or war.
(countable) One who has fallen, as from grace.
- In the Augustinian period, however, sin was held to be a death-inflicting agent, implying that the fallen was dead, and had to be restored to life.1873, James Strong with John McClintock, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literature, volume 5

fall (third-person singular simple present falls, present participle falling, simple past fell, past participle fallen)

(intransitive) To move to a lower position under the effect of gravity.
- Thrown from a cliff, the stone fell 100 feet before hitting the ground.
Synonyms:

drop, plummet, plunge
(intransitive) To come down, to drop or descend.
- The rain fell at dawn.
Synonyms:

come down, descend, drop, cut down, fell, knock down, knock over, strike down
(intransitive) To come as if by dropping down.
- Once or twice a noise fell upon his quick ear, and we halted, he standing revolver in hand in an attitude of defense. Each time, however, we ascertained that we had no occasion for alarm, the noise being made by some animal or bird ...1898, William Le Queux, Whoso Findeth a Wife, page 256
(intransitive) To come to the ground deliberately, to prostrate oneself.
- He fell to the floor and begged for mercy.
Synonyms:

drop, lower oneself, prostrate oneself
(intransitive) To be brought to the ground.
(obsolete, transitive) To let fall; to drop.
- For every tear he falls, a Trojan bleeds.1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC

Morphologically fall + -en.

73 more phrasesFewer phrases

What does fallen mean?: Fallen means having dropped by the force of gravity.
What is fallen the past participle of?: Fallen is the past participle of fall.
What part of speech is fallen?: Fallen can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce fallen?: Fallen is pronounced /ˈfɔːlən/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: fallen (page history and authors); fall (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: 2026-09-02

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

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