The story
- Old English · derived fromoffeallan“to fall upon, destroy”
- Middle English · derived fromoffallen“to destroy, defeat, ruin, fail”
- 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.