[f. FELL v. + -ER1.] One who or that which fells.
1. One who knocks clown (a person). lit. and fig.
a. 1400. Covt. Myst. (Shaks. Soc.), 159. Heyl! ffellere of the fende!
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XV. 475.
| Whose fall when Meges view’d, | |
| He let fly at his feller’s life. |
2. One who cuts down (timber); a wood-cutter.
1466. Mann. & Househ. Exp., 346. Item, to ij. fellers of tymbre … viij.d.
1553. Act 7 Edw. VI., c. 7 § 1. The Penalty … dependeth … not upon the … Feller of the same [Fuel].
1650. T. B[ayley], Worcester’s Apoph., 80. The hatchet of one of the fellers chanc’d to strike out a chip.
1783. Eliz. Carter, Letter cliv. (1808), 410. The Hamadryads, who must delight to shade your bower, will scream in the ears of the feller till he drops his axe.
1790. Burns, Second Epistle to R. Graham, xiii.
| The stubborn Tories dare to die; | |
| As soon the rooted oaks would fly | |
| Before th’ approaching fellers. |
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 35. Trees of the darkest laurel green, and knolls and clumps, large and small, against which no feller has come up, cast thick shade over their subject circlets of luxuriant underwood. [After Isa. xiv. 8.]
3. An attachment to a sewing machine for ‘felling’ (see FELL v. 6).
1874. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
