Word.ws English Dictionary

fallen behind

fallen behind is the past participle of fall behind.

Meaning of fall behind

Verb

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

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fall, behind.
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be late (for a regular event)
    • You're falling behind with the rent.
  3. (intransitive) To be progressively below average in performance.
    • You could lose your job if you keep falling behind with your work.
  4. (intransitive, transitive) to fail to keep up (with)

Questions about fallen behind

What is fallen behind the past participle of?
Fallen behind is the past participle of fall behind.

Words near fallen behind in the dictionary

  1. fallen away
  2. fallen back
  3. fallen back into
  4. fallen back on
  5. fallen back upon
  6. fallen behind
  7. fallen below
  8. fallen between the cracks
  9. fallen between two stools
  10. fallen by the wayside
  11. fallen down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fallen behind (page history and authors); fall behind (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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Cite this entry: “fallen behind.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fallen_behind. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.