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felon

Etymology and origin of the English word felon

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈfɛlən/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English feloun, borrowed from Old French felon (“wicked person, traitor”),[2][3][4][5][6] from Medieval Latin fellō,[2][3][4] of uncertain origin.[4] It is perhaps from Frankish *fillo (“one who whips, scourger”), related to Old High German fillen “to whip”,[3][4][5][6] or from Latin fel (“gall”), as if “one full of bitterness”, the explanation the OED inclines to.[4] The felon that means an infected sore is probably a different word, perhaps also from Latin fel.[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wicked person, a villain, sometimes applied to the Devil (before 1300).[7][3][4]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective the word meant “cruel, fierce, wicked” (before 1300), a sense now poetic.[7][5] By about 1300 it was also used in a legal sense for a criminal, one who has committed a felony,[4] and this became the main modern meaning,[2][5][6] while the general sense “villain” is archaic.[5][6]

Timeline

  • c. 1116 – a small abscess or inflamed sore (a separate word).[7]
  • before 1300 – a wicked person; adjective, cruel, wicked.[7][3][4]
  • c. 1300 – one who has committed a felony.[4]
  • 1578 – a whitlow near the fingernail.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (law) A person who has committed a felony.
  2. (archaic) An evil person; a villain.
  3. A painful infection at the end of a finger or toe near the nail; a whitlow.

Adjective

  1. (archaic) Evil, cruel or wicked.

Word family

  • felonious
  • felonry
  • felony
  • fell

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Felon.” Etymologically, 11 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/felon. Accessed 11 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·