fell [OE] The verb fell meaning ‘to cut down’ is recorded from Old English, and is related to *fall. Fell as a noun meaning ‘hill’ is a different word, not found until the Middle Ages. It comes from the Old Norse word for a hill, fjall. Fell [ME] as an adjective meaning ‘wicked’ comes from an Old French word meaning ‘wicked’ or ‘a wicked person’, the same root as felon [ME] and felony [ME]. Today it is probably most familiar in the phrase at one fell swoop. This originally referred to the sudden descent of a bird of prey in deadly pursuit of its quarry, but came to be used to mean ‘at a single blow’ or ‘all at one go’. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when Macduff hears that his wife and children have been killed at Macbeth’s orders, he cries out, ‘What! All my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?’ See also blind.