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"Fall" is to drop physically; "fail" is to not succeed or to give someone a failing grade.
Side-by-side comparison
To drop to the ground or descend. As a noun, the autumn season (American English).
Be careful! You might fall on the wet floor.
Temperatures fall sharply in December here.
She fell off her bike and hurt her knee.
To not succeed at something. To not pass a test. To stop working.
I failed the math exam and have to retake it.
The engine failed in the middle of the highway.
Do not be afraid to fail, it is how you learn.
Common mistake
- •The trap is pronunciation: "fall" = /fɔːl/ (like "call", "ball"); "fail" = /feɪl/ (like "tale", "mail").
- •"I fell the exam" does not exist in English.
- •The correct form is "I failed the exam" = did not pass.
Trick to remember it
- •"Fail" rhymes with "tale, sale, mail": it has the long /eɪ/ sound.
- •"Fall" rhymes with "call, ball, hall": it has the /ɔː/ sound.
- •Practice: "I failed to fall", both words in the same sentence.
Quick rule
- •"Fall" = drop physically (/fɔːl/).
- •"Fail" = not succeed or not pass (/feɪl/).
Did you know?
"Fail" also has an increasingly common noun use in informal digital English: "That was an epic fail." In internet English, "fail" and "win" are used as informal nouns to describe striking failures or successes, especially on social media. This noun use of "fail" has been documented in dictionaries like the Oxford since the 2000s.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
He studied hard but still _____ ed the driving test. He has to take it again.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
Be careful on those steps! Someone _____ there last week.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
Both mean "not easy", but "hard" also means physically firm or working intensely.
'Lay' is transitive (to place something); 'lie' is intransitive (to recline, no direct object needed).
One rises by itself, the other you raise with your own effort.
"Above" is at a higher level without contact; "over" implies covering, movement, or crossing.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy