Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In medicine:
  • noun An acute and painful inflammation of the deeper tissues of the finger or toe, especially of the distal phalanx, generally seated near the nail; paronychia; whitlow.
  • noun A sort of inflammation in quadrupeds, similar to whitlow in man.
  • noun A wicked person; a cruel, fierce person; one guilty of heinous crimes.
  • noun In law, a person who has committed a felony. The term is not applicable after legal punishment has been completed.
  • noun Felony.
  • noun Synonyms Criminal, convict, malefactor, culprit, outlaw.
  • Wicked; malignant; malicious; treacherous; proceeding from a depraved heart.
  • Obtained by felony or crime; of goods, stolen.
  • Wretched; forlorn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Characteristic of a felon; malignant; fierce; malicious; cruel; traitorous; disloyal.
  • noun (Law) A person who has committed a felony.
  • noun A person guilty or capable of heinous crime.
  • noun (Med.) A kind of whitlow; a painful imflammation of the periosteum of a finger, usually of the last joint.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A bacterial infection of the pad at the end of a finger or toe.
  • noun A person who has committed a felony.
  • noun law A person who has been tried and convicted of a felony.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime
  • noun a purulent infection at the end of a finger or toe in the area surrounding the nail

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably from Latin fel.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English felun, feloun, from Anglo-Norman felun ("traitor, wretch"), from Old Low Franconian *felo (“wicked person”), from Proto-Germanic *fillô, *filjô (“flayer, whipper, scoundrel”), from Proto-Germanic *faliz, *felaz (“cruel, evil”) (compare English fell ("fierce"), Middle High German vālant ("imp")), related to *fellanan (compare Dutch villen, German fillen ("to whip, beat"), both from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂- (“to stir, move, swing”) (compare Old Irish adellaim 'I seek', diellaim 'I yield', Umbrian pelsatu 'to overcome, conquer', Latin pellere ("to drive, beat"), Latvian lijuôs, plītiês ("to force, impose"), Ancient Greek πέλας (pélas, "near"), πίλναμαι (pílnamai, "I approach"), Old Armenian հալածեմ (halacem, "I pursue").

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Examples

Comments

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  • A small abscess or boil; a whitlow. (Listed in OED2). See paronychia.

    November 12, 2007

  • A female melon.

    November 12, 2007

  • Gotta defer to that wondrous trove of etymonline.com for this:

    "Another theory (advanced by Professor R. Atkinson of Dublin) traces it to Latin fellare "to suck" (see fecund), which had an obscene secondary meaning in classical Latin (well-known to readers of Martial and Catullus), which would make a felon etymologically a "cock-sucker." OED inclines toward the "gall" explanation, but finds Atkinson's "most plausible" of the others."

    July 5, 2021