without fail

without fail

English

Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

without fail

1. (idiomatic) Certainly; by all means; as a matter of importance

   You will report to the police every week without fail.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, 1 Samuel 30:8:

     And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, Sydney: Ure Smith, published 1962, OCLC 751607287, page 149:

     "Tuesday by all means." "Tuesday, then, without fail."

2. Inevitably.

Translations

certainly

Bulgarian: непреме́нно (bg) (nepreménno) Chinese: Mandarin: 一定 (zh) (yīdìng) Esperanto: nepre (eo) French: sans faute (fr) Galician: certamente German: unbedingt (de) Hungarian: okvetlenül (hu), feltétlenül (hu), mindenképpen (hu) Icelandic: áreiðanlega, örugglega Italian: immancabilmente (it), senza dubbio Japanese: 是非 (ja) (ぜひ, zehi) Korean: 반드시 (ko) (bandeusi) Kyrgyz: албетте (ky) (albette), сөзсүз (ky) (sözsüz), милдеттүү түрдө (ky) (mildettüü türdö), кандай болсо да (ky) (kanday bolso da) Russian: непреме́нно (ru) (nepreménno), обяза́тельно (ru) (objazátelʹno), (colloquial) как штык (kak štyk, literally “like a bayonet”) Spanish: sin falta

inevitably — see inevitably

Further reading

• “without fail” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• “without fail” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “without fail”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “without fail” (US) / “without fail” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.