Swoop

swoop







Yahoo!奇摩字典



vi. (不及物動詞 intransitive verb)



          1.    突然下降;俯衝,飛撲,猛撲[(+down)]

                      The hawk swooped down and seized the rabbit.

                      老鷹突然向下猛撲並抓住了兔子。

          2.    【口】突然襲擊[(+on)]



vt. (及物動詞 transitive verb)

      

          1.    【攫取,抓去[(+up/off/away)]



n. (名詞 noun)



          1.    俯衝,飛撲,猛撲;突然襲擊[C]





The Columbia Guide to Standard American English



fell swoop, one 

 

This is an idiom and a cliché, Macduff’s graphic figure on finding his wife and children killed by Macbeth. 



Fell is archaic but not obsolete and means "cruel, deadly, terrible," with swoop suggesting the hawk diving on defenseless little birds.





　While angels are forbidden to directly intervene in the lives of humans, Cassiel impulsively breaks this rule when a little girl falls from the balcony of an apartment block, and he swoops down to catch her. Suddenly made flesh and blood, Cassiel has earned the enmity of Emit Flesti (Willem Dafoe), a sort of overseer of the angels on the physical plane. 　





see catapult ricochet