infall

From in- + fall.

Noun

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnfɔːl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈfɔːl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːl

infall (countable and uncountable, plural infalls)

1. The act or process of falling in.
2. An incursion; an inroad.
   • 1650, Oliver Cromwell, a letter

     we learn that Ker , with his Western Army , was lying at a place called Carmunnock , when he made this infall upon Lambert

3. (countable) The area where water, storm runoff, etc., enters a storm drain.
4. (astronomy, uncountable) Movement towards a massive astronomical body under the influence of gravity; especially the process whereby gas falls towards a neutron star or black hole at high speed, forming a plasma

infall (third-person singular simple present infalls, present participle infalling, simple past infell, past participle infallen)

1. (intransitive) To fall in.
2. (intransitive, astronomy) To undergo infall.
   • 1997, Bo Reipurth, Claude Bertout, Herbig-Haro flows and the birth of low mass stars:

     After this time the beam mass loss rate decreases since once the expansion wave radius is larger than the beam, material initially outside the beam starts to infall and compensate for material which is collapsing at centre of the core [...]

• infalling

• Urban Exploration Resource

• Fallin, fall in, fallin'

Deverbal from falla in (“to realize”). Cognate of Danish indfald, Middle Low German and Dutch inval, German Einfall.

• Audio:

  (file)

infall n

1. a sudden idea, a whim

• ingivelse

• “infall”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “infall”, in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• “infall”, in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)