Fell

How to spell fell

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fell

What does fell mean?

1. verbThe past tense of fall: dropped or descended from a higher position.
2. verbTo cut down a tree or knock something to the ground.

Fell in a sentence

• The vase fell off the shelf during the earthquake.

• The crew arrived to fell the diseased oak before winter.

• Share prices fell sharply after the announcement.

• One clean punch was enough to fell the much larger opponent.

Where does fell come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fell is really several words that happen to share a spelling, all sounding identical. The most common is the past tense of 'fall', which in Old English was feoll, from the verb feallan, meaning 'to drop or come down'. A separate verb 'to fell', meaning to cut something down, comes from the Old English fellan or fyllan, a causative form literally meaning 'to make fall', which is why felling a tree means bringing it down. The noun fell, meaning a high hill or stretch of moorland in northern Britain, was borrowed from the Old Norse fjall or fell, 'mountain', carried over by Norse settlers, which is why it survives in Lake District place names. Finally, the adjective fell, meaning fierce, cruel or deadly, came through Old French fel, the same source that gives us 'felon', and it lingers today almost only in the phrase 'one fell swoop'. The spelling stays simple throughout: a short word with a doubled final l, easy to write once you know which fell you mean.

How the word is built

• Single root word; the past-tense form fell comes from Old English feoll, the past tense of feallan (to fall)