C1idiomsuccessIELTS-friendly
fall flat
USUK
to completely fail to have the effect you wanted, especially a joke, plan or speech
Used about jokes, speeches, campaigns and new products. The past tense is 'fell flat'.
In context
Jokes that work well in Vietnamese often fall flat when you translate them into English.
If the opening of your talk falls flat, the audience may stop listening.
More idioms about success
- a blessing in disguisesomething that seems bad at first but later brings a good result
- a long shotan attempt or guess that has very little chance of success
- a Pyrrhic victorya win that costs so much that it is hardly worth winning
- against all oddsalthough success seemed very unlikely
- back to square oneback at the start, because an earlier attempt has failed