drop behind
verb
Simple meaning
To suddenly do worse than others.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
drahpbihhyndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɹɑpbɪˈhaɪnd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive or intransitive
To suddenly do worse than others; to become out-of-date or to fail to keep up with others.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see stand, behind.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (transitive or intransitive) To suddenly do worse than others; to become out-of-date or to fail to keep up with others.
Used this way, drop behind is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Sudden and forceful
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.