fell

• IPA^(key): /fɛl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛl

From Middle English fellen, from Old English fellan, fiellan (“to cause to fall, strike down, fell, cut down, throw down, defeat, destroy, kill, tumble, cause to stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *fallijaną (“to fell, to cause to fall”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fallaną (“to fall”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pōl- (“to fall”). Cognate with Dutch vellen (“to fell, cut down”), German fällen (“to fell”), Norwegian felle (“to fell”).

fell (third-person singular simple present fells, present participle felling, simple past and past participle felled)

1. (transitive) To make something fall; especially to chop down a tree.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     Stand, or I'll fell thee down.

   • 2011 October 2, Aled Williams, “Swansea 2 - 0 Stoke”, in BBC Sport Wales‎:

     Sinclair opened Swansea's account from the spot on 8 minutes after a Ryan Shawcross tackle had felled Wayne Routledge.

   • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 219:

     As southeast Asia's forests were felled, the rhino's habitat shrank and became fragmented.

2. (transitive) To strike down, kill, destroy.
   • 2016 January 17, "What Weiner Reveals About Huma Abedin," Vanity Fair (retrieved 21 January 2016):

     This Sunday marks the debut of Weiner, a documentary that follows former congressman Anthony Weiner in his attempt to overcome a sexting scandal and run for mayor of New York City—only to be felled, somewhat inexplicably, by another sexting scandal.

   • 1922, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Chessmen of Mars‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2010:

     Gahan, horrified, saw the latter's head topple from its body, saw the body stagger and fall to the ground. ... The creature that had felled its companion was dashing madly in the direction of the hill upon which he was hidden, it dodged one of the workers that sought to seize it. … Then it was that Gahan's eyes chanced to return to the figure of the creature the fugitive had felled.

   • 2010 September 27, Christina Passariello, “Prodos Capital, Samsung Make Final Cut for Ferré”, in Wall Street Journal‎, retrieved 2012-08-26:

     … could make Ferré the first major fashion label felled by the economic crisis to come out the other end of restructuring.

3. (sewing) To stitch down a protruding flap of fabric, as a seam allowance, or pleat.
   • 2006, Colette Wolff, The Art of Manipulating Fabric, page 296:

     To fell seam allowances, catch the lining underneath before emerging 1/4" (6mm) ahead, and 1/8" (3mm) to 1/4" (6mm) into the seam allowance.

The fell, or stitched down portion of a kilt

fell (plural fells)

1. A cutting-down of timber.
2. The stitching down of a fold of cloth; specifically, the portion of a kilt, from the waist to the seat, where the pleats are stitched down.
3. (textiles) The end of a web, formed by the last thread of the weft.

From Middle English fell, fel, vel, from Old English fel, fell (“hide, skin, pelt”), from Proto-Germanic *fellą (compare West Frisian fel, Dutch vel, German Fell), from Proto-Indo-European *pélno (“skin, animal hide”) (compare Latin pellis (“skin”), Lithuanian plėnė (“skin”), Russian плена́ (plená, “pelt”), Albanian plah (“to cover”), Ancient Greek πέλλᾱς (péllās, “skin”)).

fell (plural fells)

1. An animal skin, hide, pelt.
   • c. 1599 Shakespeare: As You Like It: Act 3 Sc.3 L. 35

     Why, We are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are greasy.

2. Human skin (now only as a metaphorical use of previous sense).
   • c. 1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman, I:

     For he is fader of feith · fourmed ȝow alle / Bothe with fel and with face.

From Old Norse fell, fjall (“rock, mountain”), compare Norwegian Bokmål fjell 'mountain', from Proto-Germanic *felzą, *fel(e)zaz, *falisaz (compare German Felsen 'boulder, cliff', Middle Low German vels 'hill, mountain'), from Proto-Indo-European *pelso; compare Irish aill (“boulder, cliff”), Ancient Greek πέλλα (pélla, “stone”), Pashto پرښه‎ (parṣ̌a, “rock, rocky ledge”), Sanskrit पाषाण (pāşāņá, “stone”).

fell (plural fells)

Typical fells in Scandinavia.

1. (archaic outside Britain) A rocky ridge or chain of mountains.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of T. Gray to this entry?)

   • 1937 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

     The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, / While hammers fell like ringing bells, / In places deep, where dark things sleep, / In hollow halls beneath the fells.

   • 1886, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, The Squire of Sandal-Side : A Pastoral Romance‎:

     Every now and then the sea calls some farmer or shepherd, and the restless drop in his veins gives him no peace till he has found his way over the hills and fells to the port of Whitehaven, and gone back to the cradling bosom that rocked his ancestors.

   • 1971 Catherine Cookson, The Dwelling Place

     She didn't know at first why she stepped off the road and climbed the bank on to the fells; it wasn't until she found herself skirting a disused quarry that she realised where she was making for, and when she reached the place she stood and gazed at it. It was a hollow within an outcrop of rock, not large enough to call a cave but deep enough to shelter eight people from the rain, and with room to spare.

2. (archaic outside Britain) A wild field or upland moor.

From Middle English fel, fell (“strong, fierce, terrible, cruel, angry”), from Old English *fel, *felo, *fæle (“cruel, savage, fierce”) (only in compounds, wælfel (“bloodthirsty”), ealfelo (“evil, baleful”), ælfæle (“very dire”), etc.), from Proto-Germanic *faluz (“wicked, cruel, terrifying”), from Proto-Indo-European *pol- (“to pour, flow, swim, fly”). Cognate with Old Frisian fal (“cruel”), Middle Dutch fel (“wrathful, cruel, bad, base”), German Low German fell (“rash, swift”), Danish fæl (“disgusting, hideous, ghastly, grim”), Middle High German vālant (“imp”). See felon.

fell (comparative feller, superlative fellest)

1. Of a strong and cruel nature; eagre and unsparing; grim; fierce; ruthless; savage.

   one fell swoop

   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act II scene vi:

     […] While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.

   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 2

     And many a serpent of fell kind, / With wings before, and stings behind

   • 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:

     The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     No words had been exchanged between Upjohn and self on the journey out, but the glimpses I had caught of his face from the corner of the eyes had told me that he was grim and resolute, his supply of the milk of human kindness plainly short by several gallons. No hope, it seemed to me, of turning him from his fell purpose.

2. (Britain dialectal, Scotland) Strong and fiery; biting; keen; sharp; pungent
3. (Britain dialectal, Scotland) Very large; huge.
4. (obsolete) Eager; earnest; intent.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Samuel Pepys

     I am so fell to my business.

fell (comparative more fell, superlative most fell)

1. Sharply; fiercely.

• fellness

From Latin fel (“gall, poison, bitterness”)? (Stem is fell-.)

fell (uncountable)

1. Anger; gall; melancholy.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Spenser:

     Untroubled of vile fear or bitter fell.

   • 1885–1887, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “[Poem 45]”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, OCLC 5093462, stanza 1, page 66:

     I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. / What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent / This night!

fell

1. (mining) The finer portions of ore, which go through the meshes when the ore is sorted by sifting.

fell

1. simple past tense of fall

• Fell (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Fell in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

From Proto-Albanian *spesla, metathesized form of *spelsa, from Proto-Indo-European *pels 'rock, boulder', variant of *spel- 'to cleave, break'. Compare Latin hydronym Pelso, Latin Palatium, Pashto پرښه‎ (parša, “rock, rocky ledge”), Ancient Greek πέλλα (pélla, “stone”), German Felsen 'boulder, cliff'. Mostly dialectal, used in Gheg Albanian.

fell

1. deep, shallow

• fellë

• fyell

Old Norse

• IPA^(key): /fɛtl/
• Rhymes: -ɛtl

fell n (genitive singular fells, nominative plural fell)

1. isolated hill, isolated mountain

fell

1. imperative of felle

fell

1. present of falle

fell

1. imperative of fella

• fel

From Proto-Germanic *fellą, whence also Old High German vel

fell n

1. fell
2. skin