fall down

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

1. (intransitive) To fall to the ground. To collapse.

   Ring a-ring o' roses, / A pocketful of posies. / A-tishoo! A-tishoo! / We all fall down. — traditional nursery rhyme (British version)

   The beams supporting the roof had rotted, causing the entire house to fall down.

   • 1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 7, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:

     Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.

2. (nautical) To sail or drift toward the mouth of a river or other outlet.
3. (intransitive, figuratively) To fail.

   That is where your reasoning falls down.

• (fall to the ground): drop, fall
• (collapse): collapse, fall

• fall-down, falldown
• fall down backward
• fall down on

• Wolfland, downfall, landfowl