one fell swoop

短语

发音

AU

别名

one fail swoop

释义与例句

n.
  1. 1.

    One stroke; one action or event that achieves or accomplishes many results.

    习语

    Changing the oil lubricates the engine and removes debris in one fell swoop.

    ...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.

词源

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, fell meaning "terrible, cruel, savage." In later uses of the expression, the force of the metaphor is reduced or lost.

来源：wiktionary