defail

English

Etymology

French défaillir to fail; prefix dé- (Latin de) + faillir. See fail, and compare default.

Verb

defail (third-person singular simple present defails, present participle defailing, simple past and past participle defailed)

(obsolete) To cause to fail.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “defail”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

afield, failed