Word.ws English Dictionary

fell off

fell off is the simple past of fall off.

Meaning of fall off

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, transitive) To become detached or to drop from.
    • A button fell off my coat.
    Synonyms:
    drop off
  2. (intransitive) To diminish in size, value, etc.; to get worse (in quality).
    • Business always falls off in the winter.
    Synonyms:
    drop off
  3. To change the direction of a sail so as to point in a direction that is more down wind; to bring the bow leeward.
    • 'Why d'ye see, Captain Vangs,' says bold Jack, 'I'm as good a helmsman as ever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the old lady now. We can't keep her full and bye, sir; watch her ever so close, she will fall off and then, sir, when I put the helm down so gently, and try like to coax her to...1846, Melville, Typee, chapter 1
  4. (intransitive) To fall into sin; to stray.
    • I am bound to say that no one has fallen off so frequently as myself. I have renounced the devil and all his works; but it is by word of mouth only—by word of mouth only.1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

Questions about fell off

What is fell off the simple past of?
Fell off is the simple past of fall off.

Words near fell off in the dictionary

  1. fell into one's lap
  2. fell into oneself
  3. fell into place
  4. fell into someone's hands
  5. fell into the wrong hands
  6. fell off
  7. fell off a cliff
  8. fell off a truck
  9. fell off the back of a truck
  10. fell off the radar
  11. fell off the turnip truck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fell off (page history and authors); fall off (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: “fell off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fell_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.