Word.ws English Dictionary

fell flat on one's face

fell flat on one's face is the simple past of fall flat on one's face.

Meaning of fall flat on one's face

Verb

fall flat on one's face (third-person singular simple present falls flat on one's face, present participle falling flat on one's face, simple past fell flat on one's face, past participle fallen flat on one's face)

  1. (literally) To fall headlong forwards, notionally hitting one's face on the ground.
    • I tripped over my shoelace and fell flat on my face.
  2. (figuratively) To fail miserably, especially in an obvious or embarrassing way.
    • He tried to start his own business but fell flat on his face.

Questions about fell flat on one's face

What is fell flat on one's face the simple past of?
Fell flat on one's face is the simple past of fall flat on one's face.

Words near fell flat on one's face in the dictionary

  1. fell by the wayside
  2. fell down
  3. fell down on
  4. fell due
  5. fell flat
  6. fell flat on one's face
  7. fell for
  8. fell foul
  9. fell from grace
  10. fell ill
  11. fell in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fell flat on one's face (page history and authors); fall flat on one's face (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:

Cite this entry: “fell flat on one's face.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fell_flat_on_one%27s_face. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.