What's the difference between fall and pratfall?

Fall


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To Descend, either suddenly or gradually; particularly, to descend by the force of gravity; to drop; to sink; as, the apple falls; the tide falls; the mercury falls in the barometer.
  • (v. t.) To cease to be erect; to take suddenly a recumbent posture; to become prostrate; to drop; as, a child totters and falls; a tree falls; a worshiper falls on his knees.
  • (v. t.) To find a final outlet; to discharge its waters; to empty; -- with into; as, the river Rhone falls into the Mediterranean.
  • (v. t.) To become prostrate and dead; to die; especially, to die by violence, as in battle.
  • (v. t.) To cease to be active or strong; to die away; to lose strength; to subside; to become less intense; as, the wind falls.
  • (v. t.) To issue forth into life; to be brought forth; -- said of the young of certain animals.
  • (v. t.) To decline in power, glory, wealth, or importance; to become insignificant; to lose rank or position; to decline in weight, value, price etc.; to become less; as, the falls; stocks fell two points.
  • (v. t.) To be overthrown or captured; to be destroyed.
  • (v. t.) To descend in character or reputation; to become degraded; to sink into vice, error, or sin; to depart from the faith; to apostatize; to sin.
  • (v. t.) To become insnared or embarrassed; to be entrapped; to be worse off than before; asm to fall into error; to fall into difficulties.
  • (v. t.) To assume a look of shame or disappointment; to become or appear dejected; -- said of the countenance.
  • (v. t.) To sink; to languish; to become feeble or faint; as, our spirits rise and fall with our fortunes.
  • (v. t.) To pass somewhat suddenly, and passively, into a new state of body or mind; to become; as, to fall asleep; to fall into a passion; to fall in love; to fall into temptation.
  • (v. t.) To happen; to to come to pass; to light; to befall; to issue; to terminate.
  • (v. t.) To come; to occur; to arrive.
  • (v. t.) To begin with haste, ardor, or vehemence; to rush or hurry; as, they fell to blows.
  • (v. t.) To pass or be transferred by chance, lot, distribution, inheritance, or otherwise; as, the estate fell to his brother; the kingdom fell into the hands of his rivals.
  • (v. t.) To belong or appertain.
  • (v. t.) To be dropped or uttered carelessly; as, an unguarded expression fell from his lips; not a murmur fell from him.
  • (v. t.) To let fall; to drop.
  • (v. t.) To sink; to depress; as, to fall the voice.
  • (v. t.) To diminish; to lessen or lower.
  • (v. t.) To bring forth; as, to fall lambs.
  • (v. t.) To fell; to cut down; as, to fall a tree.
  • (n.) The act of falling; a dropping or descending be the force of gravity; descent; as, a fall from a horse, or from the yard of ship.
  • (n.) The act of dropping or tumbling from an erect posture; as, he was walking on ice, and had a fall.
  • (n.) Death; destruction; overthrow; ruin.
  • (n.) Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as, the fall of the Roman empire.
  • (n.) The surrender of a besieged fortress or town ; as, the fall of Sebastopol.
  • (n.) Diminution or decrease in price or value; depreciation; as, the fall of prices; the fall of rents.
  • (n.) A sinking of tone; cadence; as, the fall of the voice at the close of a sentence.
  • (n.) Declivity; the descent of land or a hill; a slope.
  • (n.) Descent of water; a cascade; a cataract; a rush of water down a precipice or steep; -- usually in the plural, sometimes in the singular; as, the falls of Niagara.
  • (n.) The discharge of a river or current of water into the ocean, or into a lake or pond; as, the fall of the Po into the Gulf of Venice.
  • (n.) Extent of descent; the distance which anything falls; as, the water of a stream has a fall of five feet.
  • (n.) The season when leaves fall from trees; autumn.
  • (n.) That which falls; a falling; as, a fall of rain; a heavy fall of snow.
  • (n.) The act of felling or cutting down.
  • (n.) Lapse or declension from innocence or goodness. Specifically: The first apostasy; the act of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also, the apostasy of the rebellious angels.
  • (n.) Formerly, a kind of ruff or band for the neck; a falling band; a faule.
  • (n.) That part (as one of the ropes) of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In the fall of 1975, 1,915 children in grades K through eight began a school-based program of supervised weekly rinsing with 0.2 percent aqueous solution of sodium fluoride in an unfluoridated community in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York.
  • (2) In all groups, there was a fall in labeling index with time reflecting increasing tumor size.
  • (3) McDonald said cutting better deals with suppliers and improving efficiency as well as raising some prices had only partly offset the impact of sterling’s fall against the dollar.
  • (4) In the clinical trials in which there was complete substitution of fat-modified ruminant foods for conventional ruminant products the fall in serum cholesterol was approximately 10%.
  • (5) Rise time and fall time constants have been quantified for describing kinetics of response.
  • (6) Elderly women need to follow the same strategies as postmenopausal women with more emphasis on prevention of falls.
  • (7) In the 153 women to whom iron supplements were given during pregnancy, the initial fall in haemoglobin concentration was less, was arrested by 28 weeks gestation and then rose to a level equivalent to the booking level.
  • (8) It is suggested that the rapid phase is due to clearance of peptides in the circulation which results in a fall to lower blood concentrations which are sustained by slow release of peptide from binding sites which act as a depot.
  • (9) Defibrotide prevents the dramatic fall of creatine phosphokinase activity in the ischemic ventricle: metabolic changes which reflect changes in the cells affected by prolonged ischemia.
  • (10) Though the 54-year-old designer made brief returns to the limelight after his fall from grace, designing a one-off collection for Oscar de la Renta last year , his appointment at Margiela marks a more permanent comeback.
  • (11) Addition of extracellular mevalonate led to a concentration-dependent fall in both processes, although a higher concentration was required to produce the same effect on LDL degradation as on HMG-CoA reductase activity.
  • (12) The fall of the cell number in the liquor cerebrospinalis was more rapidly in the GAGPS treatment.
  • (13) With fields and fells already saturated after more than four times the average monthly rainfall falling within the first three weeks of December, there was nowhere left to absorb the rainfall which has cascaded from fields into streams and rivers.
  • (14) The asthma group's fall in FEV1 was also abolished.
  • (15) Undaunted by the sickening swell of the ocean and wrapped up against the chilly wind, Straneo, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the world's leading oceanographic research centres, continues to take measurements from the waters as the long Arctic dusk falls.
  • (16) This transient paresis was accompanied by a dramatic fall in the MFCV concomitant with a shift of the power spectrum to the lower frequencies.
  • (17) As many girls as boys receive primary and secondary education, maternal mortality is lower and the birth rate is falling .
  • (18) Compliance during dehydration was 7.6 and 12.5% change in IFV per millimeter Hg fall in IFP (micropipettes) in skin and muscle, respectively, whereas compliance in subcutis based on perforated capsule pressure was 2.0% change in IFV per millimeter Hg.
  • (19) The fall of a tyrant is usually the cause of popular rejoicing followed by public vengeance.
  • (20) If women psychiatrists are to fill some of the positions in Departments of Psychiatry, which will fall vacant over the next decade, much more attention must be paid to eliminating or diminishing the multiple obstacles for women who chose a career in academic psychiatry.

Pratfall


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As Consultation-Liaison Services continue to develop and expand in general hospitals, psychiatrists must be aware of pitfalls and pratfalls inherent in dealing with medical colleagues and other allied health professionals, as well as with the patients.
  • (2) Facebook put together a steely management team that has stood it in good stead as it fought back from its IPO pratfall.
  • (3) Revolutions, upheavals, corruption, schoolboy economic pratfalls, the Italian prime minister using his own personal Caesar in distinctly un-prime-ministerial ways: some scientists have even claimed there has been more news in 2011 alone than there was in the entire first millennium AD.
  • (4) This is especially the case for Don who has already turned Pete Campbell into a ball of pratfalling fury and insulted his ally Joan.
  • (5) Gerwig may baulk at the comparison, but Baumbach tells me that the character of Frances Ha – footloose free spirit; pratfalling dancer – was directly informed by her.
  • (6) The 50 Shades adaptation seems to be conscious of this trait with its casting of Jamie Dornan, whose quiet portrayal of a bloodthirsty therapist in The Fall means there's hope for the story yet – provided he's allowed to bring notes, and avoid the genre's other pratfall, namely rigidity, as so ably demonstrated in Mark Wahlberg's 1993 school slasher The Substitute.
  • (7) Adam and Paul was a grungy comic odyssey about 24 hours in the lives of two homeless Dublin smackheads: it was Ulysses meets Waiting for Godot with Laurel and Hardy pratfalls.
  • (8) But he brushed aside all criticism with the rejoinder that the British press was the last institution that could criticise television - even for screening staged pratfalls and other disasters for his You've Been Framed (1990-97) programmes.
  • (9) Markets are always great (which is why one of their fundamental operating principle is “the greater fool theory”) but they make up for any minor negativity with light material, like systemic pratfalls.
  • (10) SH The Golden Banana Skin award for best pratfall Winner: Alejandro Sabella’s touchline tumble Facebook Twitter Pinterest This would have gone to England physio Gary Lewin, for tripping up on a water bottle during a goal celebration, except his fall looked excruciatingly painful.
  • (11) Despite the eventual pratfalls, there were long spells here when they were a far more substantial side than Monaco.