Infall

Origin

From - + fall.

Full definition of infall

Noun

1. The act or process of falling in.
2. An incursion; an inroad.
3. (countable) The area where water, storm runoff, etc., enters a storm drain.
4. (astronomy, uncountable) Movement towards a massive astronomical body under the influence of gravity; especially the process whereby gas falls towards a neutron star or black hole at high speed, forming a plasma

Verb

1. (intransitive) To fall in.
2. (intransitive, astronomy) To undergo infall.
• 1997, Bo Reipurth, Claude Bertout, Herbig-Haro flows and the birth of low mass stars:After this time the beam mass loss rate decreases since once the expansion wave radius is larger than the beam, material initially outside the beam starts to infall and compensate for material which is collapsing at centre of the core ...

Derived terms

• infalling

Anagrams

• fall in, fallin'