Probably because I’m so fell, it fell to me in one fell swoop, as I worked a fell on my loom in my home in the fell, clothed in fells of sheep, to recount the odd history of “fell.”
“Fell” is a perfectly common, modern word. And it’s also rare. And it’s also obsolete and archaic. That’s because there are a number of “fells” in English. They have completely different meanings, and other than sounding the same, they have absolutely nothing in common.
The “I fell down” fell is the past tense of “fall.” It’s from Old English, and ever since it appeared has meant the same thing. But even in Old English there was another “fell”, and this one is pretty rare nowadays. It means the pelt of an animal, like a sheepskin — but the hair has to be still attached for it to be a “fell.” In Old English these two “fells” were not as similar as they are today; an animal pelt was a “fel” but falling down was “faelan”. So in this case the pronunciation kind of merged a few centuries ago.
The “fell” that you can BE means clever, and this one came from French around the 1300s. It was a pretty straightforward bit of linguistic larceny, since the French word was “fel.” But nowadays it’s obscure, and only used in some Scottish dialects — and possibly by poets who’ve run out of rhymes for “bell.” This “fell” has some other related meanings though, and means “exceedingly…” well, something. It depends on the context, but a “fell swoop” basically means a very big swoop. But it could also mean an evil or destructive swoop — which is the meaning people are groping for when they shift the phrase into “foul swoop” (because what the heck is a “fell”).
“Fell” is also a technical term when you’re working with fabric; it’s a piece of cloth being woven on a loom, and it’s also something to do with a sewn hem (I’m not clear on that point). This “fell” is really a repurposing of the “fell” that means “fall,” and it’s also the fell used when “felling trees.” It used to also mean a litter of baby lambs, and the wood from a felled tree, but those uses disappeared at least a century ago.
Starting sometime in the 1600s, you could have a house on a fell — because that version of “fell” meant a hill or mountain. This one comes from Scandanavian; in Old Swedish it was “fiäl.” You’ll find this one in some place names, particularly in northern England, where there are places called names like the “Seathwaite Fell” and the “Lakeland Fells.” It’s not used by itself very much any more though.
We’re not even halfway through all the different kinds of “fells” there are in English, but I’ll just mention a couple more. One is “Fell type,” which is any typeface for printing associated with John Fell. He was the founder of the Oxford University Press in about 1672.
Typefaces at one point were made of lead. By a weird coincidence, around the same time the Oxford University Press was being established by John Fell with type (some of which would have been made of lead), there were lead mines in England, and the unrefined ore was called…what else… “fell.”
