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Falling off   /fˈɑlɪŋ ɔf/   Listen
Falling off

noun
1.
A noticeable deterioration in performance or quality.  Synonyms: drop-off, falloff, slack, slump.  "A gradual slack in output" , "A drop-off in attendance" , "A falloff in quality"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Falling off" Quotes from Famous Books



... a falling off from Luther's Ein feste Burg, but his spirit was in the fight; and the hymn is wonderfully improved when the great Swedish captain takes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... or invalid, and "the rules of the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health or strength of the most frail and delicate." Some ingenious device of charity thus applies to each moral or social sore, with skill and care, the proper and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from falling off, nearly all these communities are in a flourishing state, and whilst among the establishments for men there are only nine, on the average, to each, in those for women there is an average of twenty-four. Here, at Saint-Flour, is one which is bringing up fifty boarders; another, at Beaulieu, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the lake being expired. On his arrival, the sultan, anxious for intelligence of his daughter's health, took him into his closet, and while he was questioning him, by some accident the eunuch's turban unfortunately falling off, the precious stones, which, with a summary of the adventures of Eusuff and Aleefa, and his own embassy to Sind, were wrapped in the folds, tumbled upon the floor. The sultan knew the jewels, and examining the turban, to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... gate of the town, and the giant banged on the dragon with his club as if he were banging an iron foundry, and the dragon behaved like a smelting works—all fire and smoke. It was a fearful sight, and people watched it from a distance, falling off their legs with the shock of every bang, but always ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... upon the colonel, he was in the centre of a circle of tooth-pickers, who had just issued from the supper-room. These were falling off one by one; and, noticing their defection, I waited for an opportunity to speak to the colonel alone. This, after a short ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... hands, this was believed the more, although none of the children were visibly the worse for it after the first few days; but some of the women, and almost all the children believed the story, and many of the little ones were in fits of terror about the school, so that there was a falling off even with the Sunday School. The new school was only an additional room to a good-sized cottage, with a couple of windows and a brick floor, fitted with forms without backs, but which had at least good firm legs to stand upon, pegs for the cloaks and head-gear round the walls, and ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... industry, cotton, wool, linen, silk, hardware and earthenware, exhibit a diminution as compared with 1847, of no less than four millions, and as compared with 1846, of five millions;" such being the case, it becomes highly important to consider the cause of this falling off, with a view to a remedy, and some great measures must be adopted towards our own colonies that will enable them to receive a greater quantity of manufactured goods from the mother country,—and this great Railway is suggested as one that would increase the productive power ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth

... slackness nor falling off in the Mission. By God's good providence, Coleridge Patteson had so matured his system that it could work without him. Mr. Codrington and the other clergy make their periodic voyages in the 'Southern Cross.' Kohimarama flourishes under ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... total sum demanded from the Generality by the royal government was greatly in excess of the local resources. The district was heavily overcharged, relatively to other districts around it. No deduction had been made from the sum exacted by the treasury, though the falling off in prosperity was great and notorious. Turgot computed that 'the king's share' was as large as that of the proprietors; in other words, taxation absorbed one half of the net products of the land. The government listened to these representations, and conceded to the Generality about half ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... as if they had both been as long in London and as well known as Norfolk-street itself. A dozen volumes could not have told more than those dozen pages did. The Legacy followed the Lodgings in 1864, and there was no falling off in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... kings, Cutler won a little from Toussaint, who remarked that luck must go with the money of Uncle Sam. After a few hands, the half-breed began to bet with ostentatious folly, and, losing to one man and another, was joked upon the falling off of his game. In an hour's time his blue chips had been twice reinforced, and twice melted from the neat often-counted pile in which he arranged them; moreover, he had lost a horse from his string ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... love, and my own liege lord, who was your choice before he was mine, for you made him my associate in infancy; and that he continued to be mine when he ceased to be yours, does not in any way show remissness in my duties or falling off in my affections. And though I here plight my troth at the altar to Robin, in the presence of this holy priest and pious clerk, yet.... Father, when Richard returns from Palestine, he will restore you to your barony, and perhaps, for your sake, your ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... other passages in which the flatness and tediousness of the narrative is relieved by no sort of beauty, nor elegance of diction, and which form an extraordinary contrast with the more animated and finished portions of the poem. We shall not afflict our readers with more than one specimen of this falling off. We select it from the Abbess's explanation ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... instrument board and looked. Our speed had dropped to one hundred and ten miles an hour and was steadily falling off. Carpenter pulled the control lever and reduced our power. Gradually the flyer came to a stop and hung poised in space. He shut off the power an instant and at once our indicator showed that we were falling, although ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... well known that there is, from the first, a gradual falling off in the strength of a sensation of light when a moderately ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... tattooers. The way in which the renegado's came to be founded is this. A year or two after his landing there happened to be a season of scarcity, owing to the partial failure of the breadfruit harvest for several consecutive seasons. This brought about such a falling off in the number of subjects for tattooing that the profession became quite needy. The royal ally of Hardy, however, hit upon a benevolent expedient to provide for their wants, at the same time conferring a boon upon many of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... the churchyard. I knocked at the door, then I backed off the step, when it opened, thinking there must be a mistake about the date, and maybe inscriptions on gravestones was exaggerated; there was a girl in the doorway that looked and acted like Madge Pemberton complete. Moreover an old seaman falling off the doorstep didn't seem to upset ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... with heavily laden horse asks the length of a certain trip. Boy replies, "If you go slowly, very soon; if you go fast, all day." The man hurries so that coconuts keep falling off the load and have to be replaced. It ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... two thousand years ago that all-powerful Rome in one of its eastern provinces executed on a cross a simple teacher of an obscure tribe of fishermen. On that day the Roman governor felt no falling off of his appetite or sleep. On that day there was, on the one hand, the agony, the humiliation, the death; on the other, the pomp of pride and festivity ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... Lindsay had said; we had shot away the brigantine's mainboom, and thus rendered her big, powerful mainsail useless; so that, despite the lee helm that they were giving her, she was gradually falling off, until within a minute or two she was nearly dead before the wind. This placed her almost completely at our mercy, for we were now enabled to sail to and fro athwart her stern, raking her alternately with our port and starboard guns, and with our nine-pounder as well, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... plays were made up of carefully measured and varied lines, with correct and superabundant rhymes, and no marked lack of melody or rhythm. But as far as we have made acquaintance with the moral and other rhymed plays which followed, there was a great falling off in these respects. They are in great measure composed of long, irregular lines, with a kind of rhythmical progress rather than rhythm in them. They are exceedingly difficult to read musically, at least to one of our day. Here are a few verses of the sort, from the dramatic poem, rather ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... was not acted on. The Colonial soldiers declined to put on a bright red coat and a pill-box cap, that kept falling off in battle, thus delaying the carnage, but preferred to wear homespun which was of a neutral shade, and shoot their enemy from behind stumps. They said it was all right to dress up for a muster, but they preferred their working-clothes ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... appears a second-rate edifice. Not but what the spire may even vie with that of the former, and the nave may be yet larger than that of the latter; but, as a whole, it is much inferior to either—even allowing for the palpable falling off in the nave of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... of them are, I did not know till I re-read them for the purpose of writing this chapter. There is a manifest falling off in some few,—which has come from that source of literary failure which is now so common. If a man write a book or a poem because it is in him to write it,—the motive power being altogether in himself and coming from his desire to express himself,—he will write it well, presuming him to ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... such slept-on looking ears, he took away her appetite; and one needed all the appetite one could muster to worry through a meal at the Bella Vista. Besides, she believed that he had made his fortune by some awful stuff which kept hair from decaying or teeth from falling off, and it did one no good to be seen in the Casino with a creature like that. It was almost better to go about with a woman, though she did hate being reduced to walking with a female; it made a girl look ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the deadlock was apparent; meetings were falling off in attendance, and consequently in financial benefit to the promoters; there remained, however, the knowledge—for it was proved past question—that the aeroplane in its then stage of development was a necessity to every army of the world. France had shown ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... a richer and more varied emotional experience, and in wealth of harmonic resources, to say nothing of increased skill in orchestration, it is notably superior to the old music. Along with this advance, however, there is a perceptible falling off in symmetry and completeness of design, and in what I would call spontaneousness of composition. I believe that this is because modern composers, as a rule, do not drudge patiently enough upon counterpoint. They do not get that absolute mastery ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... subsequent triumph in a new environment. He had kept in close touch with the other's progress and supplied a hundred details which helped to make the situation clear. Finally, after consideration, he agreed with my diagnosis that his young friend's falling off in efficiency—his plateau—had been due to the exhaustion of ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... flat onion, measuring three inches and upwards in width by about two inches in depth; skin loose, of a pale-brown or yellowish-brown, falling off spontaneously, and exhibiting the next coating, which is greenish-white. It has a small neck, and is particularly mild flavored. One of the best for early winter ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... von Robert Burns, translated by one Silbergleit, and not so ill done either. Armed with which, I had a swim in the Main, and then bread and cheese and Bavarian beer in a sort of cafe, or at least the German substitute for a cafe; but what a falling off after the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Ah! See there that trooper struggling in the tan bark while a soldier pursues his steed. He is not hurt. He gets up, brushes away the tan bark, remounts and starts off again. But there, he's off again! He's continually falling off or jumping off purposely (?). What confusion! There comes one at a full gallop, sticking on as best he can; but there, the poor fellow is off. The horses are running away. The troopers are dropping off everywhere ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... advantage over you, that while, if they eat you, you will agree with them perfectly, you cannot eat them, at least at certain or uncertain seasons of the year, without their disagreeing with you, without sickness, trembling pains in all joints, falling off of nails and hair for years to come, and possible death. Those who may wish to know more of the poisonous fishes of the West Indies may profitably consult a paper in the Proceedings of the Scientific Association of Trinidad by that admirable naturalist, and—let me say of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... together it was a pretty jolly life, I can tell you, there in the sweet-smelling, shadowy woods and sunny waters. Then one day all at once, as quick as falling off a ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... her some of the red grape conserve and of course, instead of the horns already on her head falling off, more ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... deep; breast-bone large, prominent, and very muscular; the shoulder-blade light; shoulder full and soft; brisket and loins large; hips well developed, and on a level with the chine; hind quarters long and well filled in; buttocks on a level with the back, neither falling off nor raised above the hind quarters; tail slender, well set on; hair fine and soft; body round and full; carcass deep and well formed, or cylindrical; bone small; thigh short and well made; legs short and straight, and slender below the knee; as ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... waked Dorothy and the Lion and Toto, and told them that the ladder was ready. The Scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was so awkward that Dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from falling off. When he got his head over the top of the wall ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... am going to say now I hardly like to mention, because of its privacy, but it is so much to my father's honour that I cannot omit it. Besides, almost everybody concerned is now dead. When he left Bedford he was considerably in debt, through the falling off in his book-selling business which I have just mentioned, caused mainly by his courageous partisanship. His official salary was not sufficient to keep him, and in order to increase it, he began to write for the ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... eastern side of the northern promontory or bluff. Possibly lodges of this type were walled in front, although walled fronts are here exceptional, and some of them at least have been produced by the falling off of the rock above the doorway. The expedient of walling up the front of a shallow cavity, commonly practiced in the San Juan region, while comparatively rare in this vicinity, was known to the dwellers in these cavate lodges. At several points remains of front ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... much champagne as Major Colquhoun, and having secured a seat opposite to an uncorked bottle, he proceeded conscientiously to do his best to win the wager. Toward the end of breakfast, however, he lost count, and then he lost his head, and showed signs of falling off his chair. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... o't?' again exclaimed Madge Wildfire. 'Douce Davie Deans; the auld doited whig body's daughter, in a gipsy's barn, and the nicht setting in! this is a sight for sair een!—Eh, sirs, the falling off o' the godly!—and the t'other sister's in the Tolbooth of ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... Shudra, and then a barber. Having become a barber, he would then again become a Brahmana. Returning to the status of a Brahmana, he would again become a slave. One person in a family becomes a Brahmana: all the others, falling off from virtue, act as they like. The Gandharas, the Madrakas, and the Vahikas of little understanding are even such. Having travelled through the whole world I heard of these practices, destructive of virtue, of these sinful irregularities ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... drink ourselves out of our difficulties, for the Excise returns show a steady falling off, we are to do our bit towards smoking ourselves out of them by paying 1s. 10d. a pound more on our tobacco. This last impost constitutes a real piece of self-denial on the CHANCELLOR'S part, for he is much addicted to cigars ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various

... were they both mounted than up reared the mare, danced round on her hind legs a time or two, and then sprang away along the road at a rate which it made one gasp to witness. Tom clung in sheer terror to his big tormentor, afraid of falling off, yet afraid to stay on. Coppinger, guessing perhaps that the little man in his terror might spring off, undid his belt, and passed it round the little tailor's body, buckling it securely around them both. Then, having fastened his victim to him, beyond all hope ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... remonstrated: "My dear Bella, am I mistaken, or do I really observe a falling off in your tenderness for ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... man, he could go wherever he pleased, do whatever he pleased. Until this moment he had been bound and enmeshed with something, but he knew not his fetters and was unable to break them, while now they were falling off of themselves so simply, so easily. Both an alarming and a joyous hope blazed up within his breast, as though he noticed that suddenly light had begun to flash upon his turbid life, that a wide, spacious road lay open now before him. Certain images sprang up in his mind, and, watching ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... and hurrahs of the approaching boys, can never be known. Certain it is that by the next moment Dorry, on Lady's back, was flying in earnest,—flying at great speed round and round the field, but with never an idea of falling off. Her first feeling was that her uncle and Jack wouldn't be pleased if they knew the exact character of the ride. Next came a sense of triumph, because she felt that Don and the rest were seeing it all, and then a wild consciousness that her hat was off, her hair streaming ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... a woful falling off from Mr Cobden's wholesale colonial invoice of four and a half millions sterling! It amounts to a discount or rebate upon his statistical ware of L.2,550,000, or say, not far short of sixty per cent. Had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... FALLING OFF. The opposite of griping, or coming up to the wind; it is the movement or direction of the ship's head to leeward of the point whither it was lately directed, particularly when she sails near the wind, or lies by. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... me that every day of that month you will please your mother by keeping your drawer, or whatever it is, as tidy as a nut; and I must have from Mrs. Nott a good account of your order and neatness. Mind, every day; no books lost, no pencils falling off, else no apple-pies for you, ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood

... should hear that such an emancipation was an economic failure, we should not be in the least surprised. If we were told that the freed men would not work on the old estates,—that the products were falling off,—that the emancipated slaves were not willing to work at all,—that they were idle, and were growing constantly more ignorant and corrupt in morals, and useless to the world,—we should sigh, but say,—"It is the natural retribution for injustice. These are the harvests ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... that had hitherto been required when they sold their food-stuffs in competition with each other. But they very soon found that their sales fell off after they stopped advertising, and they kept on falling off until the advertising was resumed. This teaches us that the American people have not enough gumption to buy even the staple products they need except through the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion—which is nothing but another name for advertising. Even such ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... for the republic to furnish extraordinary sums of money. The year 1595 had not been prosperous. Although the general advance in commerce, manufactures, and in every department of national development had been very remark able, yet there had recently been, for exceptional causes, an apparent falling off; while, on the other hand, there had been a bad harvest in the north of Europe. In Holland, where no grain was grown, and which yet was the granary of the world, the prices were trebled. One hundred and eight bushels (a last) of rye, which ordinarily ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... for the apparent extinguishment of light in open space, which is indicated by the falling off in relative number of telescopic stars below the tenth magnitude. Even as things are, the amount of light coming to us from stars too faint to be seen with the naked eye is so great that the statement of it generally surprises ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... concluded that it was "Isle Aktok." To the north the mainland, with its fringe of ledgy isles, was in sight, distant not far from thirteen leagues. We had been bearing southward considerably all night, falling off from the wind, which was north-west. We were now, as nearly as we could reckon it up, a hundred and nineteen leagues inside the entrance of the straits at Cape Resolution. Raed and I were below making a sort of ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... commonwealth maintains a favorable attitude toward persons of color. It drew upon this population too because of the very urgent need for workers in its numerous industries during the labor crisis resulting from the falling off of the foreign immigration. When, moreover, manufacturing establishments of the State multiplied as elsewhere because of the demand for the manufacture of munitions of war, this need became ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... Three months ago I chucked my revolver into the lake, or I shouldn't be here to-day. You babble of madness; I tell you I know the jade. Why, there are nights when the stars slip and the world lies on her side, and only the woods of Gramarye keep me from falling off. I climb from tree to tree, man. They're like the rungs of a ladder, with their tops swaying in the wind over eternity and their roots stuck fast in a gigantic wall—that's the earth ... on her ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... to cry. She blinked her eyes at me, as if to be sure it was not a spectral vision; then looked dreadfully alarmed; then consulted her mother's face, now wreathed in smiles; and then, when her brother was falling off the seat laughing, and poking her with his stick, she condescended to relax her awful stare, to smile, to look surprised at herself for smiling—at last, to laugh. I knew then I had the victory, and I sang, lo Triumphe! in my ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... the ladies in attendance, chief among whom, for beauty and stateliness, was the famous Duchess of Sutherland—certainly one of the most superb women in England, or anywhere else, even at an age when most women are "falling off," and when ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... are here hundreds of feet high, of a bold and impressive grandeur, and crowned with firs which seem dwarfed to the passer-by. The impregnated clay appears to be constantly falling off the almost sheer face of the slate-brown cliffs, in great sheets, which plunge into the river's edge in broken masses. The opposite river bank is much more depressed, and is clothed with ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... nor grows worse steadily. Only half an eye is needed to see the superiority of "Jennie Gerhardt," as a sheer piece of writing, to "Sister Carrie," but on turning to "The Financier," which followed "Jennie Gerhardt" by an interval of but one year, one observes a falling off which, at its greatest, is almost indistinguishable from a collapse. "Jennie Gerhardt" is suave, persuasive, well-ordered, solid in structure, instinct with life. "The Financier," for all its merits in detail, is loose, tedious, vapid, exasperating. But had any critic, in the ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... sudorific. The present practice has almost entirely confined its use to external applications. The leaves are frequently employed in discutient and antiseptic fomentations; and have been recommended also in lotions and unguents for cutaneous eruptions, and the falling off of ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... ordinarily secured at the expense, necessarily, of those virtues which properly go to make up the strength of Christian manhood. The gain was the maintenance and victory of divine truth, and the salvation of the soul. The loss was a certain falling off in energy, resulting in decreased action in the natural order. The former was a permanent and inestimable gain. The latter was a temporary and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... and the minister was busy in his study. The two children kept Miss Redwood company in the dining room. It was a great falling off from last evening, Matilda thought; nevertheless she had a very entertaining talk with Miss Redwood about people and things in Shadywalk; and Norton listened, half amused and half sleepy. Mrs. Candy had been absent from Shadywalk near all winter; in ...
— Trading • Susan Warner

... The sleeve falling off the shoulder was invented for the classic contour, set forth in No. 62. Nor ribbons, nor lace, nor jewel are needed to enhance the perfect beauty of a fine, slender, white throat, and the ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... Malay houses. In one of these he and Alan went to sleep, but he advised us to remain in the boat until the morning. We laid Mab and Edith on one of the seats; Miss Woolley lay on the other; and I sat at the bottom of the boat to prevent the children from falling off. The mosquitoes were numerous on that mud bank, and I was very glad when the morning dawned. At six o'clock Mr. Helms came to say we could have an empty Malay house on shore for a few days, so we gladly mounted up the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... 12, 1895, Cerro de Muinora, probably the highest elevation in northern Mexico. I say probably, because I had no opportunity of measuring Cerro de Candelaria. Approached from the north it looked like a long-stretched mountain, covered with pines, and falling off abruptly toward the west. It is conspicuous in the songs and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... with four, or five, or six split sticks or very thin laths, and a convenient quantitie of tape or filiting, these laths are to be tyed roundabout the Pikes body, from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or falling off from the spit; let him be rosted very leisurely, and often basted with Claret wine, and Anchovis, and butter mixt together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan: when you have rosted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him (when ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... another benevolent institution in those times, was badly administered. As it constantly showed a deficit, its friends had become discouraged in supporting it, and the subscriptions on which it lived had been falling off. The ladies who were compelled to remain there did not receive the care that they should have had, and were unhappy and dispirited. This was the state of affairs when Florence Nightingale became the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... father called together all the men of his tribe. The girl stepped among them and said, "Whoever of you can ride on my father's camel without falling off, may have me as wife." Dressed in their best finery, the young men tried, one after another, but were all thrown. Among them sat the stranger youth, wrapped only in a mat. Turning toward him the girl said, "Let the stranger make a trial." The men demurred, but ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... echoed Sahwah and Gladys, nearly falling off the ledge in alarm. "You're not going home, are you? Don't tell us that you——" Words failed them and they ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... freshness of his youth, when he counted but half his present years. He had entered that period which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. At this time his inward: nature was richer and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could only be summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies could only find an outlet, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... which was extremely poetic, but Billie had become suddenly prosaic at the thought of her father, wild with anxiety she was certain, searching the terraced mountainside for them at the risk of falling off a precipice or tumbling into the river. Besides, at that moment, she felt a puff of hot wind in her face, and immediately was conscious that she was very thirsty and that the palms of her hands were ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes

... true, and Dan was instantly agog to carry it further. Julius watched Dan and the grey mare out of sight, fairly writhing with ecstasy. Oh, but Dan had been easy! The story would be all over Valley View in twenty-four hours. Julius laughed until he came near to falling off the gatepost. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... came in as full numbers as in the preceding year, when the attendance had been unusually large. The number of boarding students diminished considerably, owing to our inability to find food for all who applied, but this falling off was more than made up by day pupils. A little uncertainty in regard to the continuance of the work of the high school for colored students gave us a number of well advanced ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various

... in prison. Gradually the nation forgot its habit of dislike, which never had much foundation. Englishmen remembered his mighty deeds. They honoured him as the representative of a glorious and dead past. His fetters were of themselves falling off. Special circumstances helped to shake him free of them. He had protested ineffectually in the name of right. He had pleaded to deaf ears for liberty to serve his country. At length an impression had been produced that the prosecution of his policy ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... reign from the Greeks, who should twice fight with the Persian, and overcome him in battle, and should receive his entire dominion: that by the great horn which sprang out of the forehead of the he-goat was meant the first king; and that the springing up of four horns upon its falling off, and the conversion of every one of them to the four quarters of the earth, signified the successors that should arise after the death of the first king, and the partition of the kingdom among them, and that they should be neither his children, nor of his kindred, that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... ship and ship in every squadron should be such as none might hinder one another in advancing or falling off. ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... rather select air, if its fashion was falling off a little. The house was old, but not out of date, and quite imposing; and the big doorplate, with "Nicoll" on it, stamped it as undeniably aristocratic, Miss Lily thought. She urged her ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... his countrymen. His boots, to which he had been accustomed from his infancy, and which form a distinctive part of the national costume, were to be taken off, and to be substituted by the tight German spatterdash and the shoe, the one pinching the leg, and the other perpetually falling off the foot, wherever the march happened to be in the wet. The consequence was, infinite discontent, and desertion to a great extent—a thing never heard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... been a strange childhood, not without its redeeming features. Left to himself, seeing his brothers and sisters die around him, expecting soon to follow them, the boy grew up stern, hardy, and self-reliant. He was by no means a bookworm. He had learned to ride in the best mode, by falling off, and had acquired a passion for fishing which lasted as long as his life. There were few better yachtsmen in England than Froude, and he could manage a boat as well as any sailor in his native county. His religious education, as he always said himself, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... through the dark hours, with Punch falling off every now and again into a fitful sleep—a sleep broken by sudden intervals of half-consciousness, when Pen's heart was wrung by the broken words uttered by his companion: "Not going to shoot me, are they? Don't let them do that, comrade." While, as the weary procession continued ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... mind I had not noticed the falling off in firing. Battery after battery was silencing! Gun after ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... his evidence afterwards, said that he shouted several times that the binnacle lamp had gone out. It didn't matter to him, because his orders were to 'sail her close.' 'I thought it funny,' he said, 'that the ship should keep on falling off in squalls, but I luffed her up every time as close as I was able. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand before my face, and the rain came in ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... to the rest of the children. And then they would jostle their fond parent, lifting her up above them, and sometimes almost upsetting her, so that she had hard work to keep from falling off the nest. ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey

... down the dark lane; about midway we saw a cuirassier on horseback with his back toward us. He had a sabre cut in the abdomen and had retired into this lane, the horse leaned against the wall to prevent him from falling off. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... Hunt. In anser to your Innqueries, their as been a great falling off laterally, so muches this year that there was nobody allmost. We did smear nothing provisionally, hardly a Bottle extra, wich is a proof in Pint. In short our Hunt may be said to be in the last Stag of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... they went along pretty well for some time, but when the towers and steeples of the county-town drew very much nearer, shaggy Hanak began to complain that his saddle was nearly falling off. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... weeks; and then the "swallows" returned, and the bright hot summer of work came again with its loud songs and pleasant fruits. This dullness was continuing longer than usual; the crowded congregations were falling off; strangers did not come from a distance; the people at home were not so lively. However, the classes were continued, as also the services at the church, and the number of communicants did not decrease. Still any one could ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... and regardless of polite evasion," commanded Wang Ho. "My internal organs have for some time suspected that hostile influences were at work. For how long have you noticed this, as it may be expressed, falling off?" ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... distribution of a great part of the property into the hands of gentlemen learned in the law. Perhaps the painter had other matters to think about, he could no longer disguise from himself the fact that public patronage was falling off. It may be that the war with Spain was beginning to make people in comfortable circumstances retrench, but it is more than likely that the artist's name was not known favourably to his fellow-citizens. His passionate temperament and his quick eye for truly ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels

... been shown that the entire reliance of Gallatin for the expenses of government was on customs, tonnage dues, and land sales. The effect of the Embargo Act was soon felt in the falling off of importations, and consequently in the revenue from this source. Mr. Gallatin felt the strain in the spring of 1809; and on March 18, soon after Mr. Madison's inauguration, he gave notice to the commissioners ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... back and lay down once more, feeling relieved, and falling off into a restful sleep, little thinking how that deadly peril was indeed hovering round the island he had left, and that he and his companions were going to march on and on, not to encounter tigers alone, but men even more cruel in their nature, and quite as free from remorse when dealing with ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... from burning. Or, what is still better, you may cover the first sheets of paper with a coarse paste of flour and water rolled out half an inch thick, and then cover the paste with the second sheets of paper, securing the whole well with the string to prevent its falling off. Place the venison on the spit before a strong clear fire, such as you would have for a sirloin of beef, and let the fire be well kept up all the time. Put some claret and butter into the dripping-pan ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... prostitution, vitiation, discoloration, oxidation, pollution, defoedation|, poisoning, venenation|, leaven, contamination, canker, corruption, adulteration, alloy. decline, declension, declination; decadence, decadency[obs3]; falling off &c. v.; caducity[obs3], decrepitude. decay, dilapidation, ravages of time, wear and tear; corrosion, erosion; moldiness, rottenness; moth and rust, dry rot, blight, marasmus[obs3], atrophy, collapse; disorganization; delabrement &c. (destruction)[Fr]. 162; aphid, Aphis, plant louse, puceron[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... son. The young man goes off in quest of three bigger fools, and sees a woman hoisting a cow on to the roof of her cottage to eat the grass that grew among the thatch, and to keep the animal from falling off, she ties a rope round its neck, then goes into the kitchen, secures at her waist the rope, which she had dropped down the chimney, and presently the cow stumbles over the roof, and the woman is pulled ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... of that sight must have paralysed within me the power of remembering what followed it; for I can recall nothing, after looking on the emptiness of the rock below, except that I crouched on the ledge under my feet, to save myself from falling off it—that there was an interval of oblivion—and that I seemed to awaken again, as it were, to the thundering of the water in the abyss. When I rose and looked around me, the seaward sky was lovely in its clearness; the foam of the leaping waves flashed gloriously in the sunlight: and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... it is the best plan for them. A sportsman will find great convenience in having a third nick cut in the tumbler of his lock, so as to give an additional low half-cock, at which the cock just clears the nipple; it will prevent the cap from falling off or receiving a blow. I have long used this plan, and find no objections to it: many pistols are furnished with this contrivance. Careless gun-makers sometimes make this catch so low, that when the cock is lifted a little back from it, and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... to be seen here," said Redgrave, as he came up the companion-way, "and I don't think it would be safe to go out. The attraction is so weak here that we might find ourselves falling off with very little exertion. Still, you may as well take a couple of photographs of the surface, and then we'll be ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... and hardly uttered a word of greeting. He guessed that something bearing on himself had been either discussed or mooted. Some ordinary business was transacted, and it was disclosed that the number of subscriptions had shown a sudden falling off for that quarter. One member—a really well-meaning and upright man—began speaking in enigmas about certain possible causes: that it behoved them to look well into their constitution; for if the committee were not ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... which he could sell three hundred sacks of wheat. The present tenant, Mr. Fay[26], must, in this present year, 1821, sell one thousand sacks of wheat, to raise the money to pay his rent, taxes, and poor rates. What a falling off for the farmers! Let us hope that they will display somewhat more fortitude and patience, in the days of their adversity, than they did moderation, Christian forbearance, and temper, in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... the attack, ready to run away again, as though the old woman were disposed to beat him. Later on, however, when he was twelve years old, he would stop there bravely and watch in order that she might not hurt herself by falling off the bed. He stood for hours holding her tightly in his arms to subdue the rude shocks which distorted her. During intervals of calmness he would gaze with pity on her convulsed features and withered frame, over which her skirts lay like a shroud. These hidden dramas, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... to funds, there were not a few who felt a deep interest in the Institution on Ashley Down, who would have had God's servant discontinue his long absences, as to them it appeared that these were the main reason for the falling off in funds. He was always open to counsel, but he always reserved to himself an independent decision; and, on weighing the matter well, these were some of the reasons that led him to think that the work of God at home did not demand his ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... Advantage of such an agreeable girlish Person as Mrs. Bicknell, joined with her Capacity of Imitation, could in proper Gesture and Motion represent all the decent Characters of Female Life. An amiable Modesty in one Aspect of a Dancer, an assumed Confidence in another, a sudden Joy in another, a falling off with an Impatience of being beheld, a Return towards the Audience with an unsteady Resolution to approach them, and a well-acted Sollicitude to please, would revive in the Company all the fine Touches of Mind raised in observing all the Objects of Affection or Passion they had before beheld. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... done, and done at once, by the policy-holders, each and every one of the largest companies may become insolvent; that is, they may not be able to meet the engagements of their policies, because of waste of funds, tremendous falling off of new business, tremendous cost of new business, and the nature of the new business—so-called "graveyard business"; for I am credibly informed that they are now seeking to insure those who formerly have been refused insurance ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... anything false was abhorrent to him. When, however, after an illness, his hair began to fall off alarmingly, he thought it no harm to use a certain specific, emanating from one of her Majesty's physicians; extensively set forth and patronized as an undoubted remedy for hair that was falling off. Mr. Galloway used it extensively in his fear, for he had an equal dread both of baldness and wigs. The lotion not only had the desired effect, but it had more: the hair grew on again luxuriantly, and its whiteness turned into the finest flaxen you ever saw; a light delicate flaxen, exactly ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... epistle, and never knew that you were reading verse. I have some gossip for you about the Edinburgh Review. Napier is in London, and has called on me several times. He has been with the publishers, who tell him that the sale is falling off; and in many private parties, where he hears sad complaints. The universal cry is that the long dull articles are the ruin of the Review. As to myself, he assures me that my articles are the only things which keep the work up at all. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... market, however, for manufactures requiring great technical skill or displaying superior taste—such as gold or silver bowls, engraved or decorated with figures in outline—but they had to face a serious falling off in their sales of ordinary goods. To extend their commerce they had to seek new and less critical markets, where the bales of their wares, of which the AEgean population was becoming weary, would lose none of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... little Theophilus, his big-rimmed spectacles falling off as fast as he replaced them, and his puny frame tense with excitement, hesitated. Sitting on the extreme edge of the chair, he surveyed his comrades solemnly and was convinced that they were in earnest. Then, "I—I will try, sir!" exclaimed Theophilus, who would never forget ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... always been free and spirited, the figures have never been wanting in grace, and, though by comparison with the time of the Renaissance there is a great falling off, still, the work executed in Italy during the present century has been of considerable merit as regards ornament, though this has been overdone. In construction and joinery, however, the Italian work has been very inferior. Cabinets of ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... time was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the highland of the coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpassed anywhere else in the ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... whole is to be classed, no doubt, as "Eccentric" fiction. But if you compare with Rabelais that one of his followers[108] who possessed most genius and who worked at his following with most deliberation, you will find an immense falling off in richness and variety as well as in strength. The inferiority of Sterne to Master Francis in his serious pieces, whether he is whimpering over dead donkeys and dying lieutenants, or simulating honest indignation against critics, is too obvious ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... any reason"—it is the Coroner, of course, who is speaking—"why there should be any falling off in your mutual confidence? Has your brother done anything to ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... say that, for, since coming to Cousin Tom's bungalow at Seaview one or more of the children had gotten wet nearly every day, not always from falling off the pier, but from wading, from going too near the high waves at the beach, or from ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope

... "Easy as falling off a log. One night we will pay the Huns a visit and kill 'em. Cheery amusement, charming hobby. The terriers will get bitten on the nose, and as soon as that happens they'll see red. Then they'll start to kill; and once they've done that there will ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... not until after seven hours of fighting that we detected any falling off in the enemy's resistance. Even then the savages had the advantage of an excellent position, and to press them was extremely hazardous business. We continued to crowd them, however, until they were lined up on a long ridge which extended from the small marsh where Cousin and I first ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... waistcoat. My hair had been frizzled and powdered, and my curls stuck out from my head like little wings; but I could not finish dressing myself, because I kept confusing the different articles, the first always falling off as soon as I was about to put on the next. In this dilemma, a young and handsome man came to me, and greeted me in the friendliest manner. "Oh! you are welcome," said I: "I am very glad to see you here."—"Do ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... reprimanded, either for drunkenness or for dereliction of duty. There were spies and informers about who would not have left the Excise Commissioners uninformed of the paltriest charge they could have trumped up against Burns. Nor is there, when we look at his literary work, any falling off in his powers as a poet. He sang as sweetly, as purely, as magically as ever he did; and this man, who has been branded as a blasphemer and a libertine, had nobly set himself to purify the polluted stream of Scottish Song. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... roaring flame as the adventurous band throw the first hissing jet—cheer following cheer, as stream after stream shoots against the burning mass, now flying into the socket-holes of fire set in the black face of the house-front, now dashing with a loud shir-r against the window-frame and wall, and falling off in broken showers. Suddenly there is a loud shrill cry and the bank of human faces is upturned to where a shrieking wretch hangs frantically to an upper window-sill. A deafening shout goes forth, as the huge fire-escape comes full swing ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.

... her there with the jib aback while they hauled the canoe on board, which was not an easy task; and then with difficulty they hove down a reef in the mainsail. It was heavy work, because there was nobody at the helm; and the craft, falling off once or twice while they leaned out upon the boom with toes on her depressed lee rail, threatened to hurl them into the frothing water. Neither of them was a trained sailor; but on that coast, with its inlets and sounds and rivers, the wanderer learns readily ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... absence of correspondence. He had been accustomed in India to a big receipt of letters—a big dhak, as he called it, using the Hindustani word—now he received no letters at all; and he told Rosalie that when you are in the habit of getting a regular daily post, its gradual falling off and then its complete cessation is one of the most melancholy things that can befall a man. A nice bunch of letters in the morning, he said, is like a cold bath to a young man, a stimulant and an appetiser; and a similar packet by the night delivery is an entertainment to look forward to from ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... children, some of whom, not over four, five, and six years of age, rode alone on horseback, tied in the high saddles; managing their steeds with instinctive skill, and when the journey became fatiguing, going to sleep, secured by their fastenings from falling off. ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... that day, and were glad to retire to their favorite lounging-place, where Bab was happy trying to walk across the wide top bar without falling off, and Betty enjoyed slow, luxurious swings while her sister was recovering from her tumbles. On this occasion, having indulged their respective tastes, they paused for a brief interval of conversation, sitting side by side on the gate ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various



Words linked to "Falling off" :   deterioration, falloff, worsening, decline in quality, slack, declension



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