fall by the wayside, to

To drop out, fail to finish. The term comes from the Bible, specifically Jesus’s parable of the sower as related in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13: “Behold, a sower went forth to sow and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.” The seeds then are likened to the word of God, and the fowls to the wicked who “snatch up” the word from those who do not understand it. Subsequently, persons who strayed from the STRAIGHT AND NARROW were said to fall by the wayside. Jonathan Swift included it in his Polite Conversa- tion (1738), “If you fall by the way, don’t stay to get up again.”