英语词汇at one fell swoop的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

at one fell swoop. The first use of this phrase in English ap- pears to be by Shakespeare in Macbeth, where he describes a Hell-Kite killing chickens. But the word swoop, referring to a bird of prey pouncing suddenly on its victim, occurs in an ear- lier reference to a fabled bird of Madagascar that could swoop down and carry off “a horse and his rider, or an elephant.” One fell swoop means a sudden single strike or blow, fierce and often brutal. The fell in the phrase has nothing to do with the verb “fall,” as might be suspected, deriving instead from the old En- glish adjective fell meaning “fierce, savage, ruthless,” which is the basis for the word felon. Swoop comes from a Scandinavian word that meant to move in a stately manner, to sweep along as with trailing garments.

词汇	at one fell swoop
词源	at one fell swoop. The first use of this phrase in English ap- pears to be by Shakespeare in Macbeth, where he describes a Hell-Kite killing chickens. But the word swoop, referring to a bird of prey pouncing suddenly on its victim, occurs in an ear- lier reference to a fabled bird of Madagascar that could swoop down and carry off “a horse and his rider, or an elephant.” One fell swoop means a sudden single strike or blow, fierce and often brutal. The fell in the phrase has nothing to do with the verb “fall,” as might be suspected, deriving instead from the old En- glish adjective fell meaning “fierce, savage, ruthless,” which is the basis for the word felon. Swoop comes from a Scandinavian word that meant to move in a stately manner, to sweep along as with trailing garments.
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