The AI-powered English dictionary
plural onfalls
A falling on or upon; an attack, onset, or assault. quotations examples
Are we to have military onfall; and death also by starvation?
1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, (please specify the book or page number)
The onfall of the bishops had helped to wreck this possibility, [...]
1906, William Henry Fitchett, Wesley and his century: a study in spiritual forces
Along with your 'brethren, Get ready your scaling ladders, And your engines of onfall and assault, To attack the walls of Khung.
2004, James Legge, The Shih King
Six great land battles I count, with four upon the sea, and seven-and-fifty onfalls, skirmishes and bushments.
2008, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company
A fall of rain or snow. examples
The fall of the evening. examples
third-person singular simple present onfalls, present participle onfalling, simple past onfell, past participle onfallen
(transitive) To fall on or upon. quotations examples
[...] have been formed and ripened in large numbers, especially on the shaded ower sides of the leaves, the mycelium is practically exhausted, and as these processes are completed towards the end of the summer, the leaf so onfalls.
1889, Harry Marshall Ward, Diseases of plants
'the temple caught fire from the onfallen lightning' [...]
1992, Edgar C. Polomé, Werner Winter, Reconstructing languages and cultures
Quasivertical and quasihorizontal faults filled with crushed rocks can substantially change the amplitude of a seismic wave behind the fault in comparison with the amplitude of an onfalling wave [...]
2008, V. V. Adushkin, Ivan Nemchinov, Catastrophic events caused by cosmic objects
(transitive) To assault, attack. examples