Fallen

ppl. a. For forms see FALL v.

  1.  That has come down or dropped from a high position.

c. 1400.  Rom. Rose, 1214. White as snowe falle newe.

1776.  Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), IV. 154. I suspect it will be found that two distinct species grow in a similar manner on the fallen branches of trees.

1849.  Sk. Nat. Hist., Mammalia, IV. 27. Corn, haws, hazel-nuts, and fallen acorns constitute the food of the dormouse.

  b.  Fallen-stars Sc.: (see quot.)

1808.  Jamieson, Fallen stars … Tremella Nostoc, Linn.; a gelatinous plant, found in pastures &c. after rain. Ibid., s.v., Sea Fallen Stars … an animal thrown on the sea-shore in summer and autumn; Medusa æquorea, Linn.

  2.  Of the sun: Having set. rare.

1892.  Tennyson, Foresters, I. iii.

  3.  Of flesh, etc.: Shrunken, emaciated. Fallen fleece: see quot. 1892.

1722.  De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 281. Her fallen flesh plumped up, and the sunk and hollow parts filled again.

1748.  Richardson, Clarissa, VI. xxx. 98. The old lines appearing strong in their furrow’d foreheads and fallen cheeks.

1892.  Labour Commission, Gloss., No. 8. Fallen Fleeces. Fleece, wool, or mohair, taken from the dead carcases of sheep, &c., and, therefore, diseased.

  4.  That has been laid low, or brought to the ground. Also absol. of men. lit. and fig.

a. 1631.  Donne, Epigr. (1652), 93. Falne Okes the Axe doth into Timber hew.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), I. 283. The branches of the fallen forest.

1819.  Mrs. Hemans, Abencerrage, 56. There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave. Ibid. (a. 1835), Marius, 82. Midst fallen palaces she sits alone.

1871.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xvii. 34. The estates of the fallen King [Harold] and his loyal brothers were of course, in William’s reading of the law, forfeited by the treason of their owners, and they were no doubt at once seized into the King’s hands. Ibid., 61–2. In return for the consecrated banner which Toustain had bourne beside him at Senlac, William now sent the fallen gonfanon of Harold, on which the skill of English hands had so vainly wrought the golden form of the Fighting Man.

1878.  J. P. Hopps, Jesus, v. 21. He always seemed to look more to the heart than to outward appearances, and thought less of riches than of character; and his delight was, to lift up the fallen, and to make much of the lowly and the weak.

  5.  fig. a. In a moral sense: That has lost purity or innocence; ruined. A fallen woman: one who has surrendered her chastity. b. With reference to rank, fortune, or dignity: That has come down from high estate.

a. 1628.  F. Greville, Poems, Of Humane Learning, xix.

1645.  Milton, Tetrachordon, Wks. 1738, I. 230. God … would … not [have] sent word by Malachi in a sudden fal’n stile.

1682.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1711/4. It was contrived by some Discontented Antimonarchical Fallen-Angel.

1712.  Steele, Spect., No. 276, 16 Jan., ¶ 1. Your Papers which regard the fallen Part of the Fair Sex, are, I think, written with an indelicacy which makes them unworthy to be inserted in the writings of a moralist who knows the world.

1751.  Jortin, Serm. (1771), I. ii. 21. The Messiah was to restore fallen man.

1820.  Byron, Marino Faliero, II. i.

1848.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 482. The fallen dynasty and the fallen hierarchy were restored.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 71, The Republic, Introduction. Philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own.

  6.  Fallen-off: (see FALL v. 91).

1611.  Shaks., Cymb., III. vii. 6.

1806.  T. S. Surr, Winter in Lond. (ed. 3), I. 188. He is a degenerate branch of his noble house; a fallen-off branch from the good old English tree, transplanted to a foreign soil, where it has engrafted itself with an outlandish stock.