Word.ws English Dictionary

fell by the wayside

fell by the wayside is the simple past 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 fell by the wayside

What is fell by the wayside the simple past of?
Fell by the wayside is the simple past of fall by the wayside.

Words near fell by the wayside in the dictionary

  1. fell back upon
  2. fell behind
  3. fell below
  4. fell between the cracks
  5. fell between two stools
  6. fell by the wayside
  7. fell down
  8. fell down on
  9. fell due
  10. fell flat
  11. fell flat on one's face

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fell 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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