fell swoop, at one

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fell swoop, at one at a single blow, in one go. Swoop here denotes the sudden pouncing of a bird of prey from a height on its quarry, especially with allusion to Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606), when Macduff hears of the murder of his wife and children: ‘O hell-kite!…What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, At one fell swoop?’