Failure
When things don't go as planned or expected. Often seen as a negative โ but the best teacher we may ever have. (compare with Success)
How We Say It
faylยทyษr
Where It Comes From
Anglo-French failer โ to fail. From Vulgar Latin fallire โ to deceive, disappoint, miss. From Latin fallere โ to deceive, trip up. Related to fallacy and false. The financial sense โ bankruptcy โ was common in early modern English before the general meaning broadened.
How It's Been Used
Stigmatized in achievement cultures and recast in Silicon Valley as 'fail fast, fail forward' โ a productive stage in iteration. Educational and developmental psychology distinguishes between fixed and growth mindsets in how failure is processed. Aviation, medicine, and engineering treat failure analysis โ incident reports, post-mortems, root-cause analysis โ as central to safety improvement.