fell

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“
While he spoke the sword fell, and pierced the comely bosom of Euryalus.

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Definitions (47)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (15)

  1. transitive verb To cause to fall by striking; cut or knock down: fell a tree; fell an opponent in boxing.
  2. transitive verb To kill: was felled by an assassin's bullet.
  3. transitive verb To sew or finish (a seam) with the raw edges flattened, turned under, and stitched down.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (16)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (9)

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Examples (50)

  • After a man fell from a Japanese whaling ship into the freezing arctic waters, the whalers have called off all operations while in search for the man's body. —  Planetsave
  • The timber fell from the Russian registered vessel the Sinegorsk in the Channel on Monday, 14 miles off of New Haven, Sussex. —  Kos RSS Feed
  • On the fifth day you will die by the executioner, in the square of the town They shuddered as these dreadful words fell from the Greek's lips Is there no hope, then, at all?" —  The River of Darkness, or, Under Africa
  • The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and fell--fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its heart as it gasped its life away. —  Blown to Bits The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago
  • While we were pitching our tent near their encampment came two or three natives with dog teams, and as the dogs hesitated to pass our dogs, loose on the trail, a voluble string of curses in English fell from the Indian lips. —  Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

fell:   fall ·  falling ·  fallen ·  falls
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (12)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. Middle English fellen, from Old English fellan, fyllan.
  2. Middle English fel, from Old French, variant of felon; see felon1.
  3. Middle English fel, from Old English fell; see pel-3 in Indo-European roots.
  4. Middle English fel, from Old Norse fell, fjall, mountain, hill.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (8)

  1. from Middle English fellen (preterit felde, feld, past participle feld), cause to fall, cut down, strike down, prostrate, destroy, from Anglo-Saxon fellan, fyllan (preterit felde, fylde, past participle fylled), cause to fall, cut down, strike down, etc. (= Old Saxon fellian = OFries. fella, falla = Dutch vellen = Old High German fellen, Middle High German vellen, German fällen = Icelandic fella = Swedish fälla = Danish fælde, cause to fall), causative of feallan, fall: see fall.
  2. from fell, v.
  3. from Middle English fel, fell, from Anglo-Saxon fel, fell, a skin, hide, = Old Saxon fel = OFries. fel = Dutch vel = Old High German fel, German fell = Icelandic fjall and fell (only in comp.) = Swedish fäll = Norwegian feld, skin, hide, = Gothic (Moesogothic) fill (only in comp. thruts-fill, leprosy) = Latin pellis = Greek πέλλα, a skin, hide. From the L. pellis are derived English pell, pelt, peltry, pelisse, surplice, etc.
  4. from Middle English fel, fell, strong, fierce, terrible, cruel, angry, from Anglo-Saxon *fel, *felo, only in comp. wæl-fel (once), bloodthirsty, literally eager for slain (applied to a raven), eal-felo, variant ælfæle (twice), ‘very dire’ (applied to poison), = Old Dutch fel, wrathful, cruel, bad, base, = OFries. fal (in one uncertain instance) = Danish fæl, disgusting, hideous, ghastly, grim. Cf. OF, fel, cruel, furious, perverse, from Old Dutch fel. See felon.
  5. from fell, a.
  6. from Middle English fel, fell, from Icelandic fjall, fell = Swedish fjäll = Danish fjæld, a hill. Perhaps connected with, field, q. v.
  7. from Latin fel (fell-), gall, bile, fig. bitterness, animosity, = English gall, q. v.
  8. English dial.
 

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