Etymology

fall off

Today it means: To become detached or to drop from. Full definition →

Middle English offallen ← Old English offeallan
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old English · derived fromoffeallan“to fall upon, destroy”
  2. Middle English · derived fromoffallen“to destroy, defeat, ruin, fail”
  3. English todayfall off

From fall + off; and also dissimilated from Middle English offallen (“to destroy, defeat, ruin, fail”), from Old English offeallan (“to fall upon, destroy”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.