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• n  failure that results in a loss of position or reputation
• n  the falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist)
• n  a sudden decline in strength or number or importance

• Salieri stands to the side during all this, stage-managing Mozart's downfall, then appearing to the fevered young man in his dead father's disguise and commissioning the Requiem.
• But those same contracts turned out to be at the heart of AIG's downfall and subsequent taxpayer rescue.
• Critics hailed George Lucas' Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for giving resonance to the space baddie's downfall.

• ruin
• ruination
• precipitation
• fall

• rise

News & Articles

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• Birdsall pleads guilty to corruption, agrees to $1M fine
  TOMS RIVER — In one of the final acts by an old, once-prestigious engineering firm, Birdsall Services Group on Thursday agreed to pay a $1 million fine while pleading guilty to the criminal pay-to-play corruption charges that spurred its whirlwind downfall.
  June 13, 2013 - Asbury Park Press
• Birdsall pleads guilty to corruption, agrees to $1M fine
  TOMS RIVER — In one of the final acts by an old, once-prestigious engineering firm, Birdsall Services Group on Thursday agreed to pay a $1 million fine while pleading guilty to the criminal pay-to-play corruption charges that spurred its whirlwind downfall.
  June 13, 2013 - Asbury Park Press
• Naomi Watts says she was 'terrified' to play Princess Diana
  Naomi Watts has played real women before: outed CIA agent Valerie Plame in "Fair Game," the mother Maria from the tsunami tragedy film "The Impossible." But none have been more visible than her role as Princess Diana in the upcoming movie "Diana" from director Oliver Hirschbiegel ("Downfall").        
  June 12, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

Quotes

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• William Hague in WalesOnline
  But shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "Gordon Brown's conference speech should be the shortest in political history. Just one word - sorry. His inability to own up to his part in Britain's economic downfall and its deep impact on Scotland...
• Sherrod Brown in Washington Post
  When a few megabanks dominate our financial system, the downfall of any of them can mark the downfall of our entire economy,Brown said on the Senate floor Tuesday night as the vote neared. "Too big to fail is too big."