fallen

Pluralfallen

1. 1
   adjective

   Having dropped to the ground under the pull of gravity.

   Workers cleared the fallen debris from the highway after the windstorm.

   She slipped on a fallen apple in the orchard.

   Similardropped, downed

2. 2
   adjective

   Killed, especially in battle or armed conflict.

   The nation observes a day of silence for its fallen warriors.

   Families gathered to mourn their fallen sons after the long campaign.

   Similardead, killed, lost, deceased

   Oppositeliving

   Note

   A word of honor more than of description. In April 1945, Harry S. Truman spoke of "our fallen president" beside "the supreme sacrifice," carrying the battlefield word beyond the battlefield. Farming uses it in a flat, practical way: fallen livestock are simply animals found dead, and nothing ceremonial is implied. Context decides which tone you get. The solemn one passes into the noun for war dead.

3. 3
   verb

   Past participle of fall.

   Snow had fallen across the valley by morning.

   The old tower has fallen into ruin over the centuries.

   Note

   The participle behind every adjective and noun use of the word: fall plus the old participle ending -en. It pairs with have to build perfect tenses (snow had fallen), while the simple past is fell. So the tree fell, but the tree has fallen, and never "has fell." Because fall almost never takes an object, the form describes what has happened to something, not what someone did to it.

4. 4
   adjective

   Having lost prestige, moral standing, or religious grace.

   The fallen executive spent years trying to restore his reputation.

   Critics portrayed her as a fallen idol after the scandal broke.

   Similardisgraced, discredited, dishonored, shamed

   Oppositerespected, honored, esteemed, redeemed

   Note

   Here the drop is from standing rather than from a height: a fallen idol, a fallen leader, and in Christian thought humanity itself as a fallen race. John Bigelow's Retrospections of an Active Life (1913) plays on both senses at once with "that fallenest of our fallen race." It uses the joking superlative that also turns up with the "unchaste" meaning.

5. 5
   adjective

   Having collapsed or come down from an upright position.

   Engineers inspected the fallen bridge before clearing the wreckage.

   The fallen scaffolding had crushed several parked cars.

   Similardowned, ruined

   Oppositestanding, upright, erect

6. 6
   nounplural

   Those who have died, considered collectively.

   The monument bears the names of the fallen across two centuries.

   Mourners laid wreaths in tribute to the fallen.

   Similardead, departed, deceased

   Oppositeliving, survivors

   Note

   A collective that comes with the and a plural verb: the fallen are remembered, the fallen lie here. You cannot count it or make it singular. There is no "a fallen" or "three fallens" in this use. When a single person is meant, the word moves into the theological singular, which works quite differently.

7. 7
   nounplural

   Those killed in battle or war.

   The treaty included provisions to repatriate the fallen of both sides.

   Newspapers printed the names of the fallen each week during the war.

   Similardead, casualties, slain

   Oppositesurvivors, living

8. 8
   adjective

   Having lost one's chastity, said especially of a woman.

   Society of the period offered little mercy to a fallen woman.

   The novel follows a fallen heroine seeking to reclaim her place.

   Similarruined, disgraced, dishonored, unchaste

   Oppositechaste, virtuous, pure, respectable

   Note

   Nearly always said of women, and nearly always in the phrase a fallen woman. It is a dated, judgmental label, now found mostly in writing about the past or in irony. Though the adjective usually resists comparison, writers bend that rule for comic effect. Katharine Hillyer calls a Virginia City madam "one of the happiest, fallenest women in history," and Kelly Walsh's "the fallenest of fallen women" works the same joke.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A person who has lost divine grace or moral standing.

   The sermon offered hope to every fallen willing to repent.

   She wrote of a fallen restored to grace through years of penance.

   Similarsinner, backslider, reprobate

   Oppositesaint

   Note

   A theologian's singular. Unlike the collective dead, it can name one person and take a singular verb. James Strong and John McClintock's Cyclopaedia (1873) explains that in Augustinian thought "the fallen was dead, and had to be restored to life." Sin is pictured as a kind of death, and grace as resurrection. Outside religious writing, this countable use is hard to find.

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