underachiever

failure; nonsuccess, nonfulfillment; dead failure, successlessness; abortion, miscarriage; brutum fulmen; labor in vain (inutility); no go; inefficacy; inefficaciousness; vain attempt, ineffectual attempt, abortive attempt, abortive efforts; flash in the pan, "lame and impotent conclusion" [Othello]; frustration; slip "twixt cup and lip" (disappointment)., blunder (mistake); fault, omission, miss, oversight, slip, trip, stumble, claudication, footfall; false step, wrong step; faux pas, titubation, bévue, faute, lurch; botchery (want of skill); scrape, mess, fiasco, breakdown; flunk [U.S.]., mishap (misfortune); split, collapse, smash, blow, explosion., repulse, rebuff, defeat, rout, overthrow, discomfiture; beating, drubbing; quietus, nonsuit, subjugation; checkmake, stalemate, fool's mate., fall, downfall, ruin, perdition; wreck (destruction); deathblow; bankruptcy (nonpayment)., losing game, affaire flambée., victim; bankrupt; flunker, flunky [U.S.].

fail; be unsuccessful; not succeed; make vain efforts; do in vain, labor in vain, toil in vain; flunk [U.S.]; lose one's labor, take nothing by one's motion; bring to naught, make nothing of; get blood from a stone (impossible); roll the stones of Sisyphus (useless); do by halves (not complete); lose ground (recede); fall short of., miss, miss one's aim, miss the mark, miss one's footing, miss stays; slip, trip, stumble; make a slip, blunder [more], make a mess of, make a botch of; botch it, bitch it, miscarry, abort, go up like a rocket and come down like the stick, reckon without one's host; get the wrong pig by the tail, get the wrong sow by the ear (blunder, mismanage) [more]., limp, halt, hobble, titubate; fall, tumble; lose one's balance; fall to the ground, fall between two stools; flounder, falter, stick in the mud, run aground, split upon a rock; run one's head against a stone wall, knock one's head against a stone wall, dash one's head against a stone wall; break one's back; break down, sink, drown, founder, have the ground cut from under one; get into trouble, get into a mess, get into a scrape; come to grief (adversity); go to the wall, go to the dogs, go to pot; lick the dust, bite the dust; be defeated; have the worst of it, lose the day, come off second best, lose; fall a prey to; succumb (submit); not have a leg to stand on., come to nothing, end in smoke; flat out [U.S.]; fall to the ground, fall through, fall dead, fall stillborn, fall flat; slip through one's fingers; hang fire, miss fire; flash in the pan, collapse; topple down (descent); go to wrack and ruin (destruction)., go amiss, go wrong, go cross, go hard with, go on a wrong tack; go on ill, come off ill, turn out ill, work ill; take a wrong term, take an ugly term., be all over with, be all up with; explode; dash one's hopes (disappoint) [more]; defeat the purpose; sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

unsuccessful, successless; failing, tripping; at fault; unfortunate., abortive, addle, stillborn; fruitless, bootless; ineffectual, ineffective; inefficient (impotent); insufficient; unavailing (useless); of no effect., aground, grounded, swamped, stranded, cast away, wrecked, foundered, capsized, shipwrecked, nonsuited; foiled; defeated; struck down, borne down, broken down; downtrodden; overborne, overwhelmed; all up with; ploughed, plowed, plucked., lost, undone, ruined, broken; bankrupt (not paying); played out; done up, done for; dead beat, ruined root and branch, flambe, knocked on the head; destroyed.

unsuccessfully; to little or no purpose, in vain, re infecta.