one fell swoop
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
After Shakespeare, in Macbeth, act iv, scene 3, where Macduff learns his wife and entire family are murdered:
- Ro. Wife, Children, Servants, all that could be found. […]
- Macd. […] All my pretty ones?
Did you say All? Oh Hell-Kite! All?
What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme
At one fell swoope?
The imagery is of a bird of prey ("hell-kite") ransacking a whole nest at one blow. In later uses of the expression, the force of the metaphor is reduced or lost.
Noun[edit]
- (idiomatic) One stroke; one action or event with many results.
- Changing the oil lubricates the engine and removes debris in one fell swoop.
- 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act iv, scene 3:
- What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme
At one fell ſwoope?
- What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme
- 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 16:
- ...they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.
Translations[edit]
one stroke; one action or event with many results
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