State or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, opposite of success. / Omission to do something, whether or not it was attempted, especially something that ought to have been done.

plural of failure

The frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, expressed for example in failures per hour.

(geology) An effect of seismic activity, such as an earthquake, where the ground becomes very soft, due to the shaking, and acts like a liquid, causing landslides, spreading, and settling.

Loss of the load-carrying capacity of a component or member within a structure or of the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when the material in a structure is stressed to its strength limit, thus causing fracture or excessive deformations.

(pediatrics) Poor physical growth or level of weight, relative to one's age peers. / (medicine, chiefly geriatrics) Abnormal weight loss, malaise.

Alternative form of heart failure

plural of heart-failure

(cardiology, pathology) The chronic inability of the heart to pump a sufficient amount of blood throughout the body, leading to a pooling of blood and shortness of breath.

(economics) A situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient.