Definition

1. Verb (past tense of "fall"):

   • To move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level. This is the simple past tense and past participle of the verb "to fall."
   • To decrease in number, amount, intensity, or quality.
   • To be defeated or overthrown.
   • To pass into a specified state, often of sin, error, or ruin.

2. Verb (transitive):

   • To cut down (a tree).
   • To strike down, knock down, or kill.

3. Noun:

   • An act of cutting down trees.
   • A hill or stretch of high moorland, especially in northern England.
   • An animal's hide or skin with its hair.

4. Adjective:

   • Of terrible evil or ferocity; deadly; cruel.

Usage and Examples

• Verb (past tense of "fall"):

  • She fell from the ladder and broke her arm.
  • Stock prices fell sharply yesterday.
  • The government fell after a vote of no confidence.
  • He fell into despair after the loss.

• Verb (transitive - to cut down or strike):

  • The lumberjacks will fell the old pine tree tomorrow.
  • The champion felled his opponent with a single punch.

• Noun (act of cutting trees):

  • The fell of the ancient forest sparked protests.

• Noun (hill/moorland):

  • They went hiking on the wild, windswept fells of the Lake District.

• Noun (animal skin):

  • The trapper prepared the beaver fell for tanning.

• Adjective (cruel, deadly):

  • It was a fell and wicked deed. (literary/archaic)
  • The knight faced a fell opponent in battle.

Advanced Usage

• "to fell at one blow": to knock down or kill with a single action.
  • The hero felled the giant at one blow.
• "fell swoop": a single swift action. (Often used in the idiom "in one fell swoop").
  • The new policy solved three major problems in one fell swoop.

Variants and Related Words

• Feller (noun): a person or machine that fells trees.
• Felling (noun/gerund): the activity or job of cutting down trees.
  • Tree felling requires a permit.
• Felon (noun): a person who has committed a felony (a serious crime). (Shares the etymological root related to cruelty or wickedness).

Synonyms

• Verb (to cut down): cut down, chop down, hew, level.
• Verb (to strike down): knock down, floor, prostrate, deck.
• Adjective: cruel, savage, fierce, vicious, deadly, lethal.

Phrasal Verbs / Related Constructions

(Note: As a verb, "fell" itself is not commonly used in phrasal verbs. The following relates to its base form "fall.") - Fall apart: to break into pieces; to become emotionally upset. - Fall for: to fall in love with; to be deceived by. - Fall out: to argue and stop being friendly; to happen. - Fall through: (of a plan) to fail to happen.

Idioms and Fixed Phrases

• In one fell swoop: doing a lot of things at once, with a single decisive action.
  • The merger eliminated hundreds of jobs in one fell swoop.
• A fell purpose: (literary) a cruel or ruthless intention.
• The fell of night: (poetic) the onset or darkness of night.

Adjective

1. (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
   • a barbarous crime
   • brutal beatings
   • cruel tortures
   • Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks
   • a savage slap
   • vicious kicks

Noun

1. the act of felling something (as a tree)
2. seam made by turning under or folding together and stitching the seamed materials to avoid rough edges
3. the dressed skin of an animal (especially a large animal)

Verb

1. sew a seam by folding the edges
2. pass away rapidly
   • Time flies like an arrow
   • Time fleeing beneath him
3. cause to fall by or as if by delivering a blow
   • strike down a tree
   • Lightning struck down the hikers