Forms: 3–5 felle, 3–6 fel(e, 3– fell. [a. OF. fel = Pr. fel, It. fello fierce, cruel, savage:—popular Lat. fellō, nom. of fellōn-em sb.: see FELON.]
A. adj.
1. Of animals and men, their actions and attributes: Fierce, savage; cruel, ruthless; dreadful, terrible. Also in cruel and fell, fierce and fell. Now only poet. or rhetorical.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 3974 (Cott.).
| Esau … was fel and wald noght spare. | |
| Ibid., 20935 (Cott.). | |
| [P]aule … bicome … | |
| Schep o wolf, and mek of fell. |
1340. Ayenb., 61. Þe felliste best þet me clepeþ hyane.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 3614.
| Þo bi-gan þat batayle · on boþe sides harde, | |
| Feller saw neuer frek · from Adam to þis time. |
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xi. 44. Herode was a full wikkid man and a fell.
c. 1450. Gesta Rom., xxxi. 115 (Add. MS.). By a felle lyon thou shalt lose thi lyf.
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, I. 109. Quhen fechtyng was fellast.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, x. 14. Alle proude hertys that be felle.
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius, S vij. He caused their handes to be bound behind their backes and to be brought by suche as were priuy to their counsell, when they came in Bessus presence, he beheld them with a fell countenaunce and rose vp to haue striken at them.
1622. Dekker, Virg. Martir, I. Wks. 1873, IV. 10.
| My zeal to them | |
| I ever have expressed in my fell hate | |
| Against the Christian sect, that with one blow, | |
| Ascribing all things to an unknown power. |
1634. Milton, Comus, 357. Fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xxii. 78. Such fell and cruel people, as the Chineses were.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 184/2. The … Ban-dog … is fierce, is fell, is stout, is strong.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), II. xxxiii. 238. I will risque all consequences, said the fell wretch, rising, with a countenance whitened over, as if with malice, his hollow eyes flashing fire, and biting his under lip, to shew he could be manly.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. xv.
| With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge | |
| Gaul’s locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge. |
1813. Scott, Rokeby, IV. xxvi.
| A deadly oath the ruffian swore, | |
| But yet his fell design forbore. |
1847. Emerson, Poems, Dæmonic Love, Wks. (Bohn), I. 465.
| Even the fell Furies are appeased, | |
| The good applaud, the lost are eased. |
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. iii. 118. With all the fell ferocity of men falling on their bitterest feudal enemy.
1877. C. Geikie, Christ, xxiii. (1879), 255. The soul, they [the Essenes] imagined, was a subtle ether, of heavenly origin, drawn down to earth by a fell necessity, and imprisoned in the body till set free at death.
2. Of things, esp. of natural agents, weapons, disease, suffering, etc.: Keen, piercing, intensely painful or destructive. Of poison: Deadly. Still dial. in colloquial use; in literature only poet. and rhetorical: Dire, appallingly cruel or destructive.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 421. [The Ark] Flote forthe with þe flyt of þe felle wyndeȝ. Ibid., B. 954. Of felle flaunkes of fyr & flakes of soufre.
a. 1330. Otuel, 59.
| Oliuer was horsed wel, | |
| And bar a spere kene & fel. |
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVI. 31. Þe flesshe is a fel wynde.
c. 1440. York Myst., xiv. 72. Þe fellest freese þat euer I felyd.
c. 1440. Bone Flor., 1973. Hys sekeness was so felle.
c. 1475. Rauf Coilȝear, 74. The wedderis ar sa fell, that fallis on the feild.
1559. W. Cuningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 66.
| Like as the Zones into v. partes do right the Heauens diuide, | |
| Euen so, for th’ Earth a numbre like, nature did well prouide | |
| The middest of them all men eschew, the burning is so fell. |
1567. Turberv., Epitaphes, etc. (1837), 386.
| Small arrowes, cruel heads, | |
| that fel and forked be: | |
| Which being shot from out those bowes | |
| a cruel wayes wil flee. |
1663. Butler, Hud., I. ii. 803.
| To guard its Leader from fell bane, | |
| And then reveng’d itself again. |
1729. T. Cooke, Tales, Proposals, etc., 139.
| In all his tumultuous Breast a Fury reigns, | |
| And with the fellest Venom swells his Veins. |
1742. Gray, To Adversity, v.
| With screaming Horror’s fun’ral cry, | |
| Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. |
1757. Smollett, The Reprisal, Epilogue.
| Should the descending show’rs of hail redouble, | |
| And these rough billows hiss, and boil and bubble, | |
| He’ll launch no more on such fell seas of trouble. |
1787. Burns, A Winter Night, i.
| Biting Boreas, fell and doure, | |
| Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r. |
1831. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), II. 309. Common ashes are solemnly labelled as fell poison.
1867. G. MacDonald, Poems, A Christmas Carol for 1862, 194.
| And hunger fell is joined with frost, | |
| To make men thin and wan. |
b. of an incident, portion of time, etc.
c. 1340. Cursor Mundi, 22428 (Fairf.).
| Of þe cruel dais & felle | |
| be-for domis-dai þai salle be sene. |
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VII. ii. 53.
| And for drede of fellare chawns | |
| Sum of þaim þan fled in Frawns. |
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, IV. 109.
| The consaill mett rycht glaidly on the morn; | |
| Bot fell tithingis was brocht Persie beforn. |
1557. Tottell’s Misc., Of the Golden Meane (1870), 256.
| Of lofty ruing towers the fals the feller be, | |
| Most fers doth lightenying light, where furthest we do se. |
1799. Sheridan, Pizarro, III. ii. Come, fearless man—now meet the last and fellest peril of thy life—meet! and survive—an injured woman’s fury, if thou canst.
1821. Joanna Baillie, Met. Leg., Columbus, xlv.
| Within, without the tossing tempests rage: | |
| This was, of all his earthly pilgrimage, | |
| The injured Hero’s fellest, darkest hour. |
c. Sc. With reference to taste: Keen, pungent.
1786. Burns, Cotter’s Saturd. Nt., 96.
| The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, | |
| To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell. |
† 3. Hot, angry, enraged, virulent. Obs.
1382. Wyclif, Ecclus. xxiii. 22. A fel soule as fyr brennende shal not be quenchid.
a. 1450. Knt. de la Tour (1868), 86. Amon was right fel and wrothe.
1558. Bp. Watson, Sev. Sacram., xxix. 186. The manne ought not to be bitter and fell agaynste his wyfe in vsing brawlinges.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., II. i. 20. Oberon is passing fell and wrath.
4. Full of spirit, sturdy, doughty. Obs. exc. dial.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 125. Þe burgeis were fulle felle.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 129. A faire man of feturs, & fellist in armys.
1475. The Boke of Noblesse, 64. Forto make the Romains more egir and fellir in that bataile to revive hem silfe thoroughe cruelte of his dethe.
1522. The World and the Child, in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 252.
| Breastplates I have beaten, as Stephen was with stones, | |
| So fell a fighter in a field was there never y-found. |
1593. Drayton, Eclogues, IV. 122.
| Fell was he and eager bent | |
| In Battaile and in Tournament. |
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxii. A bonny terrier that, sir—and a fell chield at the vermin, I warrant him.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v. ‘I wasn’t i’ fell order,’ not in able condition.
b. Const. for, on, † to: In earnest, eager; bent or intent upon. Obs. exc. dial.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 15 Jan. I am so fell to my business, that I, though against my inclination, will not go.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v. ‘Thoo’s mair fell for thy dinner than rife for a race.’
1888. Rider Haggard, Col. Quaritch, II. xiv. 229. I’m rarely fell on seeing them and having a holiday look round Lunnon town.
† 5. Shrewd; clever, cunning. Obs.
c. 1275. Lay., 5302. Mid hire felle [c. 1205, præt] wrenches.
1382. Wyclif, Prov. xii. 16. Who forsothe dissymulith wrongus is fel.
c. 1400. Beryn, 1853. Evandir was his name, þat sottill was, & fell.
c. 1475. The Romans of Partenay, 1237. Till thay wer growyn ryght large, wyse, and fell.
1561. Randolph, Let., 7 Dec., in Keith, Hist. Ch. & St. Scot. (1734), I. 205. Liddington hath a crafty Head and fell Tongue.
1725. Ramsay, Gent. Sheph., III. ii.
| Jen. O Father! there’s an auld Man on the Green, | |
| The fellest Fortune-teller e’er was seen. |
6. In weakened sense: Exceedingly great, huge, mighty. Obs. exc. Sc.
1515. The Scottish Field, 43.
| There they fell, at the first shotte | |
| Many a fell fothir. |
1586. J. Ferne, The Blazon of Gentrie, 11. This Harrat hath spent a fell time in bussing like a preacher, to teach our Gentiles vertues leere.
1889. J. M. Barrie, Window in Thrums, xiv. 131. ‘It had a fell lot o’ brass aboot it.’
† 7. quasi-sb. The adj. used absol. Obs.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 1124 (Cott.).
| ‘Caym ware es þi broiþer abell?’ | |
| ‘I wat neuer,’ said he, þat fell. |
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 1565. Þer þe felle bydez.
8. Comb., as fell-like adj. (dial.)
1854. H. Keddie, Phemie Millar, VII. 179 She did think it was a fell like thing that any one … should be thinking of nonsense.
B. adv.
1. In a ‘fell’ manner; † cruelly, fiercely (obs.); eagerly, vigorously, excessively (obs. exc. dial.).
a. 1300. Cursor M., 23997 (Cott.).
| Bot quen i sagh þaa juus snell, | |
| Rise again mi sun sua fell, | |
| Ful wanles wex i þan. |
c. 1320. Sir Tristr., 97.
| To batayl gan he wende, | |
| Was wounded in þat fiȝt | |
| Ful felle. |
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1040. Þat fel fretes þe flesch & festred bones.
c. 1470. Hardyng, Chron., cxcvii. v. He chastised theim no feller as was sene.
1597. Montgomerie, Misc. Poems, xxii. 10. ‘Fell peart,’ quod Cupid, ‘thou appeirs.’
1832–53. Whistle-Binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. III. 114.
| Our Sawnies and Maggies, as hard as the horn, | |
| At e’en blythe will dance, yet work fell the neist morn. |
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric. (E.D.S.). A plough goes too fell when going deeper than is wished.
1876. Whitby Gloss., He eats his meat varry fell.
1889. J. M. Barrie, Window in Thrums, xvi. 148. She was ‘complaining fell (considerably) about her back the day.’
2. Comb. with ppl. adjs.
1587. Misfort. Arthur, I. ii., in Hazl., Dodsley, IV. 268. Cast off this rage and fell-disposed mind.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., V. i. 146.
| That with the very shaking of their Chaines, | |
| They may astonish these fell-lurking Curres. |
1795. Fate Sedley, II. 62. Goaded by the fell pointed spear.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v. Fell-bred, of a vicious kind.
