Word.ws English Dictionary

how the mighty have fallen

how the mighty have fallen phrase: used to imply the decline of a once-great person or entity.

Phrase

how the mighty have fallen!

  1. Used to imply the decline of a once-great person or entity.

Origin of how the mighty have fallen

The phrase originates in the Old Testament, 2 Samuel 1:19. The earliest version in English is found in the Great Bible, (1539): Oh howe are the myghtie ouerthrowen. The modern word fallen version is found in the King James Version, (1611) and is an expression of David's lament over Saul and Jonathan: The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

Questions about how the mighty have fallen

What does how the mighty have fallen mean?
How the mighty have fallen means used to imply the decline of a once-great person or entity.
What part of speech is how the mighty have fallen?
How the mighty have fallen is a phrase.

Words near how the mighty have fallen in the dictionary

  1. how say you
  2. how see
  3. how should I know
  4. how so
  5. how the cow ate the cabbage
  6. how the mighty have fallen
  7. how the other half live
  8. how the other half lives
  9. how the sausage gets made
  10. how the sausage is made
  11. how the turntables

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: how the mighty have fallen (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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