One fell swoop
Posted on August 24, 2004
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I like the phrase “one fell swoop” but never before wondered as to its origin. That is, until today:
The phrase is one of those fixed expressions that we hardly think about most of the time. It means all at once, suddenly. It’s been around in the language for at least 400 years. Shakespeare is first recorded as using it, in Macbeth: when Macduff hears that his family has been murdered, he says in disbelief:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
Read the rest at World Wide Words.
Damn that Shakespeare and his witty tongue.