Dear tsuwm,



Quinion writes:

There are actually four fell words in English; apart from this one, there is the verb meaning to cut down (intimately linked with fall), the one meaning an animal skin (as in the obsolete trade of fellmonger), and the one meaning a hill (as in the fells of Cumbria). They all come from different source words.

We've got the fell swoop fell, and he writes about the three beyond the swoop fell: the fall, the skin, and the hill.

My question is, what with dell's being a hollow down in the hills, and fell's being a hill, is there something geographical in the ell ending? "The farmer on the fell, another in the dell, heigh-ho the derry-o!, the farmer on the fell!---or in the dell!"

Best regards,
WordWoe