misfall

present singular third person misfalls · participle present misfalling · past misfell · participle past misfallen

1. ambitransitiveTo befall badly or incorrectly; happen unfortunately (to); mishappen; turn out badly.

   Sometime ſhe feared, leaſt ſome hard miſhap / Had him misfalne in his aduenturous queſt; [...]

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 257

   2 more examples

   [...] let us abide together that, one with the counsel and that other with the deed, then may there nothing misfall to usward.

   1889, Henry Morley, Early prose romances

   However, the principal and his students worked hard, and they soon had the buildings in shape for use and the farm doing as well as possible. Then a terrible misfortune misfell one of the neighbors who was most bitter in his tirades.

   2009, Eric B. Hare, Skyscrapers

plural misfalls

1. A mishap; accident; bad luck; misfortune.

   But alas! an unlooked- for misfall has occurred."

   1875, Julian Hawthorne, Saxon studies