Word.ws English Dictionary

fell

UK/fɛl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/fel/

fell verb: to make something fall; especially a tree. Also the simple past of fall.

fell: to make something fall; especially a tree
Image: JFPerry, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

fell (third-person singular simple present fells, present participle felling, simple past and past participle felled)

  1. (transitive) To 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...
    • 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
  2. (transitive) To strike down, kill, destroy.
    • 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...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
  3. To 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

Noun (1)

fell (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. The 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

Noun (2)

fell (plural fells)

  1. (archaic, rare) Skin, hide, pelt.
    • For he is fader of feith · fourmed ȝow alle / Bothe with fel and with face.c. 1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman, section I
    • 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...
  2. (broadly) A 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...

Noun (3)

fell (plural fells)

  1. High and barren landscape feature such as a mountain range or mountain terrain above the tree line.
  2. (Scotland, archaic outside Northern England) A rocky ridge or chain of mountains, particularly in the British Isles or Fennoscandia.
    • 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
    • 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
  3. (Scotland, archaic outside Northern England) A wild field or upland moor.
    • As over Holt and Heath, as thorough Frith and Fell;1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 11 p. 174
    • 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

Adjective

fell (comparative feller, superlative fellest)

  1. Of a strong and cruel nature; eager and unsparing; grim; fierce; ruthless; savage.
    • one fell swoop
    • […]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...
  2. (Scotland, UK, dialectal) Strong and fiery; biting; keen; sharp; pungent
  3. (Scotland, UK, dialectal) Very large; huge.
  4. (obsolete) Eager; 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...

Adverb

fell (comparative more fell, superlative most fell)

  1. Sharply; fiercely.

Noun (4)

fell (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Anger; 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
    • 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

Noun (5)

fell

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

Proper noun capitalized: Fell

Fell

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

Noun (6) capitalized: Fell

Fell (plural Fells)

  1. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis 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. (abbreviation, ellipsis, uncountable) Ellipsis 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, F. K. Pearson, “The Manx Electric Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 426

Also used as

fell is also the simple past of fall.

fell is also the past participle of fall.

fell meaning in Malayalam and Persian

fell in Malayalam

വീണു

fell in Persian

to make something fall
انداختن andâxtan, به زمین زدن beh zamin zadan

Examples of fell in a sentence

  • 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:
  • … 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:
  • Halsten Pike, Alstang, Birnside—the huge fells with their barbarous names were very near.1970, James Herriot, If Only They Could Talk:
  • 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:

All 40 example sentences with fell

Synonyms of fell

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of fell

Forms of fell

Verb
third-person singular presentfells
present participlefelling
past participlefelled
pastfelled
Noun
pluralfells
pluralFells
Adjective
comparativefeller
superlativefellest
Adverb
comparativemore fell
superlativemost fell

Past tense of fell: felled

Plural of fell: fells

Origin of fell

From Middle English fellen, from Old English fellan, fiellan (“to cause to fall, strike down, fell, cut down, throw down, defeat, destroy, kill, tumble, cause to stumble”), from Proto-West Germanic *fallijan, from Proto-Germanic *fallijaną (“to fell, to cause to fall”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fallaną (“to fall”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂peh₃lH-. Cognate with Dutch vellen (“to fell, cut down”), German fällen (“to fell”), Danish fælde (“to fell”), Norwegian felle (“to fell”).

From Middle English fell, fel, vel, from Old English fel, fell (“hide, skin, pelt”), from Proto-West Germanic *fell, from Proto-Germanic *fellą, from Proto-Indo-European *pél-no- (“skin, animal hide”). See also West Frisian fel, Dutch vel, German Fell, Latin pellis (“skin”), Lithuanian plėnė (“skin”), Russian плена́ (plená, “pelt”), Albanian plah (“to cover”), Ancient Greek πέλλᾱς (péllās, “skin”). Related to film, felt, pell, and pelt.

From Middle English fell, felle, from Old Norse fell (fjall, fiæl, “mountain range or mountain terrain above the tree line”), from Proto-Germanic *felzą, *fel(e)zaz, *falisaz (compare German Felsen 'boulder, cliff', Middle Low German vels 'hill, mountain'), from Proto-Indo-European *pels-; compare Irish aill (“boulder, cliff”), Ancient Greek πέλλα (pélla, “stone”), Pashto پرښه (parṣ̌a, “rock, rocky ledge”), Sanskrit पाषाण (pāṣāṇa, “stone”). Doublet of fjeld. Cognates includes: Danish fjeld (fjæld), Faroese fjall (fjøll), Icelandic fjall (fell), Norwegian fjell (fjøll, fjødd, fjedd, fjedl, fjill, fill, fil, fel), Swedish fjäll (Old Swedish fiæl).

Words formed from fell

Phrases with fell

79 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with fell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fell

What does fell mean?
Fell means to make something fall; especially a tree.
What is fell in Malayalam?
Fell in Malayalam is വീണു. See Fell meaning in Malayalam.
How do you use fell in a sentence?
As southeast Asia's forests were felled, the rhino's habitat shrank and became fragmented.
What part of speech is fell?
Fell can be a verb, a noun, an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce fell?
Fell is pronounced /fɛl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of fell?
The past tense of fell is felled.

Words near fell in the dictionary

  1. Felkers
  2. Felkin
  3. Felkins
  4. Felkirk
  5. felks
  6. fell
  7. fell about
  8. fell among
  9. fell apart
  10. fell around
  11. fell asleep

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fell (page history and authors); Fell (page history and authors); fell (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-fell.wav.

Cite this entry: “fell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.