fell

present singular third person fells · participle present felling · participle past felled · past felled

1. transitiveTo make something fall, especially a tree.

   Stand, or I'll fell thee down.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]

   2 more examples

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

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

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

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

2. transitiveTo strike down; to kill; to destroy.

   I am the Power Cosmic incarnate. Not so easily felled!

   2023 December 18, “Galactus VS Unicron (Marvel Comics VS Transformers)” (15:41 from the start), in DEATH BATTLE!, season 10, episode 16, spoken by Galactus (Wolf Williams)

   4 more examples

   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.

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

   "Even in his most temperate moments he is constantly felling people with a hunting-crop."

   1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 19

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

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

   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.

   2016 January 17, “What Weiner Reveals About Huma Abedin”, in Vanity Fair, retrieved 21 Jan 2016

3. businessTo stitch down a protruding flap of fabric, as a seam allowance or pleat.

   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.

   2006, Colette Wolff, The Art of Manipulating Fabric, page 296

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. businessThe end of a web, formed by the last thread of the weft.

   Cut the first 2 warp ends in half and tie each pair together with an overhand knot, snug (but not tight) against the fell.

   2026, Emily Barth, “Woolly Cocoon Bags”, in Handwoven, volume XLVII, number 1, page 37

plural fells

1. archaicrareSkin, hide, pelt.

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

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], line 35

   1 more example

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

   c. 1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman, section I

2. broadlyA covering of hair, wool, etc., especially when matted or thick; a fleece; also (chiefly in fell of hair), a thick head or mass of hair.

   [M]y Fell of haire / VVould at a diſmall Treatiſe rovvze, and ſtirre / As life vvere in't.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v], page 150, column 1

plural fells

1. geographyHigh and barren landscape feature such as a mountain range or mountain terrain above the tree line.
2. Scotlandarchaic outside Northern EnglandA rocky ridge or chain of mountains, particularly in the British Isles or Fennoscandia.

   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.

   1937, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

   4 more examples

   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.

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

   I got out and from where I stood, high at the head, I could see all of the strangely formed cleft in the hills, its steep sides grooved and furrowed by countless streams feeding the boisterous Halden Beck which tumbled over its rocky bed far below. Down there, were trees and some cultivated fields, but immediately behind me the wild country came crowding in on the bowl where the farmhouse lay. Halsten Pike, Alstang, Birnside—the huge fells with their barbarous names were very near.

   1970, James Herriot, If Only They Could Talk

   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.

   1971, Catherine Cookson, The Dwelling Place

   So the noble prince proceeded undismayed up fells and screes, along narrow footpaths and ways where they were forced into single file, ledges on cliffs above lairs of water-monsters.

   1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 46

3. Scotlandarchaic outside Northern EnglandA wild field or upland moor.

   As over Holt and Heath, as thorough Frith and Fell;

   1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 11 p. 174

   4 more examples

   The night continued beautifully clear and fine, and as we came into the fell country the outlines of the hills showed up dark against the starlit sky.

   1948 March and April, O. S. Nock, “Scottish Night Mails of the L.M.S.R.—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 77

   I remember the sudden drop in the note of the station bell, as we roar through, perhaps with 16 coaches; sweep up to milepost 9½, and then, with increasing thunder from the exhaust, fairly rush the fells at Milnthorpe at the foot of the climb to Grayrigg, until the steady thunderous beat re-echoes past Mosedale Hall, still at 40 m.p.h.

   1955 April, W. J. Alcock, “Unforgettable Moments”, in Railway Magazine, page 271

   And there are few better ways to enjoy the rugged bleakness of the fells than from a nice warm train, especially when the weather's constantly changing as the day slips away.

   2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 57

   An artist dubbed the Borrowdale Banksy has created this slate work on a Lake District fell after past efforts were vandalised.

   2023 June 29, Metro, London, page 15, column 3

comparative feller · superlative fellest

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

   one fell swoop

   5 more examples

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

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vi]

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

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

   […] but if it be solitary with the position of an incisor, will it even then bear out Professor Owen's hypothesis, that Thylacoleo, which he infers to have been one of “the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts, […]

   1862, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London

   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.

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

   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.

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

   Synonyms: diabolical, sadistic, spiteful, barbarous, bowelless, brutal, compassionless, cruel

2. ScotlandUKdialectalStrong and fiery; biting; keen; sharp; pungent
3. ScotlandUKdialectalVery large; huge.
4. obsoleteEager; earnest; intent.

   I am so fell to my business.

   1667 January 24 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “January 15th, 1666–1667”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume VI, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC

comparative more fell · superlative most fell

1. Sharply; fiercely.

1. obsoleterareuncountableAnger; gall; melancholy.

   Untroubled of vile fear or bitter fell.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

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

   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, stanza 1, page 66

1. businessThe finer portions of ore, which go through the meshes when the ore is sorted by sifting.

1. pastsimple past of fall
2. colloquialparticiplepastpast participle of fall

   Wayne who has fell in love with a female and decides to be married, then change his mind and don't want that.

   1986, Joseph Beam, quoting "Emmett", “Emmett's Story: Russell County, Alabama”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 162

   3 more examples

   For I have heard that my Enemies have fell into that ſnare which they laid for mee. They which would have taken away my life have loſt their own;[…]

   1650, Micheel Sandivogius, translated by J. F., A New Light of Alchymie: Taken Out of the Fountaine of Nature, and Manuall Experience […] , London: Richard Cotes, page 121

   I ſhould have fell overboard, or been killed by the enemy ; for having ſo many things to carry along with me, which I knew not how to uſe[…]

   1796, Thomas Bennett, The Life and Remarkable Conversion of T. Bennett, Etc. [Written by Himself.], London, →ISBN, page 31

   And when it got to ten past I said you must have fell in with company, but I was beginning to get worried.' 'You know I never fall in with company,' he protested irritably. 'I always leave the Royal at ten to, never a minute more nor less.'

   2013 October 3, John McGahern, Collected Stories, Faber & Faber, →ISBN, page 147

1. A surname.

   Michelle Scrogham won Barrow and Furness for Labour, ousting Conservative Simon Fell, while her party colleague Lizzi Collinge secured Morecambe and Lunesdale.

   2024 July 5, “Labour seizes Cumbria winning five of six seats”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2024, retrieved 03 Sep 2026

2. A township in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States.
3. A municipality in Trier-Saarland district, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

plural Fells

1. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of Fell pony.

   Fells are usually pure black with no white markings, but bay, gray, and brown are also possible.

   2016, Fern Collins, The Noble Horse, page 126

2. abbreviationellipsisuncountablerail transportEllipsis of Fell mountain railway system, named after John Barraclough Fell.

   This line [the Snaefell Mountain Railway] is the world's only example of an electrically-operated railway with a Fell central rail.

   1957 June 28, F. K. Pearson, “The Manx Electric Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 426