failure
American Heritage Dictionary:
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fail·ure
(fāl'yər) 
n.
n.
- The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment.
- One that fails: a failure at one's career.
- The condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short: a crop failure.
- A cessation of proper functioning or performance: a power failure.
- Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: failure to report a change of address.
- The act or fact of failing to pass a course, test, or assignment.
- A decline in strength or effectiveness.
- The act or fact of becoming bankrupt or insolvent.
[Alteration of failer, default, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French faillir, to fail. See fail.]
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failure
Roget's Thesaurus:
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failure
noun
- The condition of not achieving the desired end: unsuccess, unsuccessfulness. See thrive/fail/exist.
- One that fails completely: bust, fiasco, loser, washout. Informal dud, flop, lemon. Slang bomb. See thrive/fail/exist.
- A cessation of proper mechanical functions: breakdown, outage. See thrive/fail/exist.
- Nonperformance of what ought to be done: default, delinquency, dereliction, neglect, omission. Law nonfeasance. See do/not do.
- A marked loss of strength or effectiveness: declination, decline, deterioration. See increase/decrease.
- The condition of being financially insolvent: bankruptcy, bust, insolvency. See money.
Antonyms by Answers.com:
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failure
n
Definition: lack of success
Antonyms: accomplishment, achievement, attainment, earnings, gain, merit, success, win
n
Definition: person who does not succeed
Antonyms: achiever, success
In structural engineering, that condition of a structural element (or its material components) which renders it incapable of continuing the load-carrying function for which it was designed; may be caused by fracture or by excessive and permanent plastic deformation.
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In mechanics, the inability to perform a function.
Word Tutor:
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failure
IN BRIEF: A lack of success.
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
— Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915).
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Quotes About:
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Failure
Quotes:
"Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street."
- Zig Ziglar
"The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success."
- Paramahansa Yogananda
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
- John Wooden
"If all this happened to you what paradigm might you develop? How might that paradigm affect you in terms of your life from that point on? What does this tell you about Abe? There are no failures, only lessons to be learned."
- Oprah Winfrey
"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness."
- Oprah Winfrey
"You can give in to the failure messages and be a bitter deadbeat of excuses. Or you can choose to be happy and positive and excited about life."
- A.L. Williams
See more famous quotes about Failure
The Dream Encyclopedia:
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Failure
Dreaming about failing, in school or in some task, may simply be an expression of anxiety (i.e., it is not a sign predicting that someone will fail). People who regularly dream of failing are often perfectionists.
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
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failure
Inability to perform or to function properly.
- f. to conceive — said of cows which return to estrus after mating.
- kidney f. — see renal failure.
- f. of passive transfer — see maternal immunity.
- respiratory f. — called also ventilatory failure; see respiratory failure.
- f. to thrive — used generally to describe young animals which are not gaining weight or growing; can be due to disease or management problems. In llamas, used to describe a specific syndrome in which the young are normal in early age, but later stop growing. Rickets is one possible cause, but there may be others.
Mosby's Dental Dictionary:
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failure
n
A deficiency; an inefficiency as measured by some legal standard; an unsuccessful attempt.
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'failure'
- Diagnostic Terminology - failure: total cessation of bodily function
- Morality or Character
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Failure
For other uses, see Failure (disambiguation).
"Fail" redirects here. For the Irish Republican Party, see Fianna Fáil.
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic engineering.
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Contents
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Failure in science
Thomas J. Watson is attributed with saying "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate". Wired Magazine editor Kevin Kelly likewise explains that a great deal can be learned from things going unexpectedly, and that part of science's success comes from keeping blunders "small, manageable, constant, and trackable". He uses the example of engineers and programmers who push systems to their limits, breaking them to learn about them. Kelly also warns against creating a culture (e.g. school system) that punishes failure harshly, because this inhibits a creative process, and risks teaching people not to communicate important failures with others (e.g. Null results).[1]
Criteria for failure
The criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.
It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.
Types of failure
Failure can be differentially perceived from the viewpoints of the evaluators. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an Outcome Failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standard or benchmark.
- Failure to anticipate
- Failure to perceive
- Failure to carry out a task
Loser is a derogatory term for a person who is (according to the standards of the observer) generally unsuccessful.
Commercial failures
A commercial failure is a product that does not reach expectations of success.
Most of the items listed below had high expectations, significant financial investments, and/or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations," there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop."
- For flops in computer and video gaming, see List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming
- For company failures related to the 1997–2001 Dot-com bubble, see Dot-com company
- See also Vaporware
- Box-office bomb
Internet memes
"Epic fail" redirects here. For the House episode, see Epic Fail (House).
"Fail" is the name of a popular Internet meme where users superimpose a caption, often the word "fail" or "epic fail", onto photos or short videos depicting unsuccessful events or people falling short of expectations.[2] In July 2003, a contributor to Urban Dictionary wrote that the term, "fail," could be used as an interjection, "when one disapproves of something," citing the example: "You actually bought that? FAIL." This most likely originated as a shortened form of "You fail" or, more fully, "You fail it," the taunting "game over" message in the 1998 Japanese video game Blazing Star, notorious for its fractured English.[3][4][5] There is an entire Internet site dedicated to "fails" called Fail Blog.[3] The #fail hash tag is used on the microblogging site Twitter to indicate contempt or displeasure, and the image that accompanies the message that the site is overloaded is referred to as the "fail whale".[6]
Failboat or consignment of fail is a popular macro series, featuring images of cargo vessels tipping over or shedding cargo, with captions such as 'the failboat has arrived', or 'all aboard the failboat'. The original vessel whose image was used was the MV Cougar Ace,[citation needed] although the Ital Florida, the MV Napoli and even the SS Normandy, sunk at her berth in New York harbour, have appeared.
The term "miserable failure" has also been popularized as a result of a widely known "Google bombing," which caused Google searches for the term to turn up the White House biography of George W. Bush.[7]
See also
References
- ^ http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_6.html
- ^ "Memes Help Keep Internet Interesting.". www.redorbit.com. March 22, 2008. http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1306942/memes_help_keep_internet_interesting/index.html. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ a b Zimmer, Ben (August 7, 2009). "How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection.". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/magazine/09FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=3&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ Schofield, Jack (17 October 2008). "All your FAIL are belong to us.". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/oct/17/2. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ Beam, Christopher (2008-10-15). "Epic Win". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2202262/. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ Malik, Asmaa (24 April 2010). "Joy in the failure of others has gone competitive". Montreal Gazette. http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/failure+others+gone+competitive/2940572/story.html. Retrieved 21 May 2010.[dead link]
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David P. (August 13, 2007). "Someone Set Us Up The Google Bomb.". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/google.asp. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
Further reading
- Perrow, Charles. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Paperback reprint, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-691-00412-9
- Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01510-X, ISBN 0-674-02107-X
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Failure |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
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Failure
Dansk (Danish)
n. - fiasko, sammenbrud, forsømmelse, fallit, uheldigt udfald
Nederlands (Dutch)
mislukking, storing, nalatigheid, het uitblijven, onvermogen om normaal te functioneren, faillissement, tekort, mislukkeling, verval
Français (French)
n. - échec, (Fin) faillite, raté, panne, (Méd) défaillance, manquement à une promesse, (Jur) défaut de comparution (en justice), non-respect de la réglementation, (Agric) perte (de récolte)
Deutsch (German)
n. - Bankrott, Mißerfolg, Ausfall, Verschlechterung, Scheitern, Versager
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αποτυχία (κν. φιάσκο), αποτυχημένος, αμέλεια, παράλειψη, διακοπή, βλάβη, έλλειψη, ανεπάρκεια, (οικον.) χρεοκοπία (κν. φαλιμέντο), αδυναμία εκτέλεσης ή εκπλήρωσης
Italiano (Italian)
fallimento, insuccesso, guasto, fallito
idioms:
- failure of fallimento di, guasto di
Português (Portuguese)
n. - falha (f)
idioms:
- failure of falha de
Русский (Russian)
провал, банкротство, невыполнение, повреждение
idioms:
- failure of провал
Español (Spanish)
n. - quiebra, fracaso, fallo, avería, fracasado
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - misslyckande
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
失败, 不足, 失败者
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 失敗, 不足, 失敗者
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 실패 , 태만, 불이행, 부족, 낙제, 지불 능력 상실
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 失敗, 落第, 失敗者, 失敗作, 不足, 怠慢, 不履行, …しないこと, 破産, 衰弱, 故障
idioms:
- failure of 失敗
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) إخفاق , فشل
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - כישלון, חוסר, אי-ביצוע, אי-יכולת, פשיטת רגל
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American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Roget's Thesaurus
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine. Copyright © Michael Kent 1998, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved.
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The Dreams Encyclopedia. 1995 ©Visible Ink Press (VisibleInkPress.com). All rights reserved.
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Saunders Veterinary Dictionary
Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.
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Mosby's Dental Dictionary
Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Random House Word Menu
© 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier.
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Failure.
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