fall behind
Britishverb
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to drop back; fail to keep up
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to be in arrears, as with a payment
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Also, get behind.
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Lag, fail to keep up, as in You really must keep up with the others; if you fall behind you could get lost . [First half of 1500s]
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Be financially in arrears, as in He fell behind in his payments . [Mid-1800s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Many smaller labels had stopped shipping to Saks in the run-up to its bankruptcy as it fell behind on payments.
While farmers welcome the help, the aid comes after years of falling behind financially, meaning that a lot of the money will go directly back to creditors.
Households struggling to make ends meet have fallen behind on energy payments, leading to a collective debt to suppliers of well over £4bn.
From BBC
Instead, it shows that traditional campus structures are falling behind digital alternatives in the face of the social anxiety of the 21st-century young adult.
Economists call this phenomenon a K-shaped economy: The wealthy are surging ahead, while the poorest are falling behind.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
