fell stroke

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

And then – boom! – with one fell stroke of an adapter’s arbitrariness, Mr. Kelly altered the play’s ending in a way that crudely shrinks and simplifies its intentions.

From New York Times • Aug. 2, 2010

By one fell stroke he was put in second place, a man who had to await the return of Palmer—and that in his own church, so to speak.

From Twelve Men by Dreiser, Theodore

It was not in the way of things that he, who had always had everything, should at one fell stroke be left desolate.

From Old Rose and Silver by Reed, Myrtle

He believed they were not far from Lake Ontario, and he had no doubt that Montcalm had prepared some fell stroke.

From The Masters of the Peaks A Story of the Great North Woods by Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)

See all the artifice of civilisation swept away at one fell stroke, and behold your gentleman, transformed in an instant into a beast, with all a beast's primeval qualities.

From A Spinner in the Sun by Reed, Myrtle