What does befalling mean?
Befalling is the present participle and gerund form of the verb "befall", meaning to happen to someone or something. It belongs to a formal, literary register of English and carries an almost exclusively negative connotation: what befalls people is typically misfortune, disaster, tragedy, or some other unwelcome event. A sentence such as "the calamities befalling the village" suggests events descending upon their victims, which reflects the verb's literal origins — "befall" combines the prefix "be-" with "fall", evoking something falling onto a person. The word appears most often in narrative, journalistic, and historical prose, where writers seek gravity or an old-fashioned tone that plainer verbs like "happening to" cannot supply. Because the simple verb "befall" is already somewhat archaic, its participial form "befalling" is rarer still, encountered chiefly in elevated writing rather than conversation.
verbThe present participle and gerund of "befall": to happen to someone or something, especially something unpleasant or unlucky.
- (Of something, especially something bad) to happen to someone or something; used in progressive forms as the present participle of befall.
"The villagers feared the misfortune that seemed to be befalling their harvest year after year."
"She wrote to her sister about the strange events befalling the small coastal town."
"The chronicler recorded every calamity befalling the kingdom during the king's final years."
In Old English, fate wasn't described as happening — it was said to 'befall', literally falling upon you like an object dropping out of the sky.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of befalling
Befalling derives from "befall", formed in Old English from the prefix "be-" and the verb "fall", with the sense of something coming upon or overtaking a person. The compound is native to the Germanic branch of Indo-European, and close parallels exist in other Germanic languages, such as German "befallen". The participle inherits this long history, retaining the literary flavor of its parent verb.
Related word forms
How befalling is actually used
Formal and literary in register; rare in everyday speech. Almost always collocates with negative events such as disaster, misfortune, or tragedy. As a gerund it can serve as a noun ('the befalling of such tragedies'), though this is very rare.
Easily confused with befalling
"Befalling" means happening to someone, while "befitting" means appropriate or suitable for someone.