feld

[pat2936]

If someone says in one feld swoop, what does the word feld mean?

[Quizmonster]

It's 'fell' and means cruel, ruthless or deadly...as in a hawk swooping down on a pigeon.

[Quizmonkey]

First coined by Shakespeare in Macbeth - describing the murder of Macduff's children.

[Quizmonster]

Actually, Q, there are recorded uses of the word dating back to the 1300s, so the Bard was a relative newcomer to its use. Cheers

[Quizmonkey]

Really??? God - it's in all the Shakespeare books. I played Banquo last year and it was mentioned in the intro to the edition we were using.

[Quizmonster]

Sorry,

[Quizmonster]

Sorry, Q, I think we're talking at cross purposes here. You're absolutely correct that Shakespeare coined the phrase "one fell swoop". I, on the other hand was talking just about the word 'fell', which I saw as the key element of the question. My apologies for the misunderstanding.
(I've no idea how the strange little semi-answer immediately above came about!)

[Quizmonkey]

Phew, thank goodness - everyone's happy then!

[B00]

<apologises to pat and bundles QM back into his box>

sorry, sorry.....he's only allowed out occasionally and it gets too much for him, he gets giddy.

[Peter Pedant]

just to get it back onto an intellectual level

Banquos big speech is Act 3 sc 1

Thou has it now, King Cawdor Glamis

all that the weird women promised

and yet I fear.....

and at the end of the speech, in comes Macbeth in an example of dramatic irony.....

I did it for o level in 1966

[Quizmonster]

The relevant speech is from Macduff in Act 4 Scene 3, in reference to the fact that Macbeth has slaughtered his wife and children...

"What! All my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?"

[Quizmonkey]

Wasn't PP alluding to me as Banquo and you as Macbeth?!

[Quizmonster]

Seems more than likely, Q. I just wanted Pat, the questioner, to see the source of the quote we were - unawares in my case! - 'debating'.

[portocat]

I thought it was one foul swoop. 

[Quizmonster]

Portocat, 'fell', as we are discussing it here, is from a Latin word-form 'fello' meaning cruel. (This is also where we get the word 'felon' meaning a criminal.)
'Foul' is from the Teutonic language family, for example Old High German had the word 'ful', meaning rotten/stinking.
There are occasions when one may refer today to "a foul crime", say, but there is no linguistic connection between that and the reference in earlier times to "a fell crime". Cheers