Word.ws English Dictionary

falling by the wayside

falling by the wayside is the present participle and gerund of fall by the wayside.

Meaning of fall by the wayside

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To fail to be completed, particularly for lack of interest; to be left out, to suffer from neglect.
    • When I faint and fall by the wayside of my cares, it [a "cup of favor"] shall give me strength to bear up, as the refreshments of your sympathy seem to flow from its lip, and when I thirst, it shall be as one of the consecrated fountains of my relief.1843 April 23, J[ohn] T. Sargent, A Cup of Blessing, or The Pastor’s Acknowledgment to His People in Return for Their Full Chalice, Boston, Mass.: Printed by Samuel N. Dickinson, →OCLC, page 10

Questions about falling by the wayside

What is falling by the wayside the present participle and gerund of?
Falling by the wayside is the present participle and gerund of fall by the wayside.

Words near falling by the wayside in the dictionary

  1. falling between the cracks
  2. falling between two stools
  3. falling block
  4. falling blocks
  5. falling by
  6. falling by the wayside
  7. falling collar
  8. falling collars
  9. falling diphthong
  10. falling diphthongs
  11. falling down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: falling by the wayside (page history and authors); fall by the wayside (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: “falling by the wayside.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/falling_by_the_wayside. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.