What about: To cause to fall by striking; cut or knock down: fell a tree

verb tr.:
1. To knock down, strike, or cut down.

Maybe you didn't scroll down far enough.

It always tickled my fancy the you can 'saw down a tree' then proceed to 'cut it up'

Giant oaks from little acorns grew, grew up, and what goes
up must come down.

WELCOME jroop48

>>>1. Fierce; cruel; lethal.<<<

So, "that foul deed" could also be "that fell deed"?

Yes, indeed.

I presume that "fell swoop" referred originally to a bird of prey, an image that was brought home to me one spring night as my wife and I were preparing for sleep: outside our window we heard our lovely little Manx cat shriek, the heavy beat of a wing, and she was gone. Owl or hawk, we never knew.

Peter

What a horrible thing to have happened...

I have a huge Cooper's hawk living in the trees, and
s/he has been making dinner lately of the mourning doves
which are so slow to fly away. Fell swoops and all.

making dinner lately of the mourning doves
Now that truly is a fell swoop; for the unlucky dove, anyway.

And yet the Cooper's Hawk is a magnificent bird.
S/he landed on my patio and I have wonderful pictures,
which I wish I could post. That is something we will
work on Jackie, tho' many tried to help me post here
early on to no avail.

we had two families of red-tailed hawks take up residence in our woods this August, and not coincidentally I believe, we lost two of our cats. it was a tough summer.

and more on topic, "fell" as in [i]1. Fierce; cruel; lethal.[/] is often used in Tolkien and other fantasy writing.

Red Tails are magnificent birds too, as are the very small
kestrels.

My sympathy on the loss of your cats.

Third one down, right hand side is like the one in my yard.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/accipiterIDtable.htm

and more on topic, "fell" as in [i]1. Fierce; cruel; lethal.[/] is often used in Tolkien and other fantasy writing.

funny how this word is used by Tolkien as you say, especially
when Saruman begins his terrible destruction. We don't use
it much, but sure know what it means when it appears in
literature like this.

I get red kites in my garden...used to have a load of buzzards but now we see more kites...they are huge and their wing span covered both sides of the road - almost ran one over as it had a rabbit in the middle of the road, was surrounded by crows, we didn't notice the kite until we were up close and it ran and flew in front of the car...beautiful birds
best photoes on this website: red kites
another good site: buzzards (the grayscales at the bottom enlarge into colour)

Neat photo!
The kite on the top left is eating while flying, perhaps
an avian multi-tasker.

The bird-song of the buzzard woke my dog from her nap.
Really surprised me as well.

It's also funny that the 'word' elevator only expresses the up-function.
Taking the thing by its word you should walk down.

Cooper Hawk

Do you mind if I give your link?
It's really a fantastic bird to have on your doorstep.
In the snow.
Link Cooper Hawk

Escalator is similar: increasing, upwards, in a way.

WowThanks Bran, I need to learn
how to do that. At least I could post some pictures
periodically.
Thanks: This is a picture of the Cooper's Hawk I took
a few weeks back. Note the size by comparison to the
cement block. A beautiful creature.

Great picture, Luke! (Thanks for posting it, Branny.) I would say you've got a juvenile, probably female.

You know raptors. Probably a juvenile, female?
Thanks.

And posting things the way Bran did, we need to work
on that too, so I can learn how to do it.
On another thread< I've had some success: will get back
to you on that, and something to show you.