Part 28

3. Death; destruction; overthrow; ruin.

They thy fall conspire.

Denham.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Prov. xvi. 18.

4. Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as, the fall of the Roman empire.

Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

Pope.

5. The surrender of a besieged fortress or town ; as, the fall of Sebastopol.

6. Diminution or decrease in price or value; depreciation; as, the fall of prices; the fall of rents.

7. A sinking of tone; cadence; as, the fall of the voice at the close of a sentence.

8. Declivity; the descent of land or a hill; a slope.

9. Descent of water; a cascade; a cataract; a rush of water down a precipice or steep; -- usually in the plural, sometimes in the singular; as, the falls of Niagara.

10. The discharge of a river or current of water into the ocean, or into a lake or pond; as, the fall of the Po into the Gulf of Venice. Addison.

11. Extent of descent; the distance which anything falls; as, the water of a stream has a fall of five feet.

12. The season when leaves fall from trees; autumn.

What crowds of patients the town doctor kills, Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills.

Dryden.

13. That which falls; a falling; as, a fall of rain; a heavy fall of snow.

14. The act of felling or cutting down. "The fall of timber." Johnson.

15. Lapse or declension from innocence or goodness. Specifically: The first apostasy; the act of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also, the apostasy of the rebellious angels.

16. Formerly, a kind of ruff or band for the neck; a falling band; a faule. B. Jonson.

17. That part (as one of the ropes) of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting.

Fall herring (Zoˆl.), a herring of the Atlantic (Clupea mediocris); -- also called tailor herring, and hickory shad. -- To try a fall, to try a bout at wrestling. Shak.

Fal*la"cious (?), a. [L. fallaciosus, fr. fallacia: cf. F. fallacieux. See Fallacy.] Embodying or pertaining to a fallacy; illogical; fitted to deceive; misleading; delusive; as, fallacious arguments or reasoning. -- Fal*la"cious*ly, adv. - Fal*la"cious*ness, n.

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Fal"la*cy (fl"l*s), n.; pl. Fallacies (- sz). [OE. fallace, fallas, deception, F. fallace, fr. L. fallacia, fr. fallax deceitful, deceptive, fr. fallere to deceive. See Fail.] 1. Deceptive or false appearance; deceitfulness; that which misleads the eye or the mind; deception.

Winning by conquest what the first man lost, By fallacy surprised.