tumble down

present singular third person tumbles down · participle present tumbling down · participle past tumbled down · past tumbled down

1. alsofigurativelyintransitiveTo topple, collapse.

   After its tournament dreams came tumbling down in shocking fashion last March, the Harvard men’s hockey team has high hopes of improving upon the disappointing up-and-down 2008-09 season and making it back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006.

   2009 November 10, Scott A. Sherman, “Offense To Spark Harvard Comeback”, in The Harvard Crimson

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   About the time that Sylla was making ready, to put off with his Forces from Italy, beſides many other Divine Omens which befell Mithridates [VI Eupator] at Pergamos, there goes a ſtory, that the Statue of Victory, with a Crown in her hand, which the Pergamenians by Engines from above let down on him, when ſhe had almoſt reacht his head, fell aſunder, and the Crown tumbling down into the midſt of the Theatre, broke to pieces againſt the ground, […]

   1684, Plutarch, “The Life of L[ucius] C[ornelius] Sylla”, in William Davies, transl., The Third Volume of Plutarch’s Lives. Translated from the Greek, […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], pages 240–241