Etymology

failure

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Today it means: State or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, opposite of success. Full definition →

Anglo-Norman failer ← Old French faillir
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromfaillir“to fail”
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived fromfailer
  3. English todayfailure

From Anglo-Norman failer, from Old French faillir (“to fail”). Equivalent to fail + -ure.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.