Transitive
The poachers were caught yesterday when they fell trees illegally.I think fell is right but my friend says it should be felled.
Shantanu
New member
1 answer 
Yes, "fell" is the past tense of the verb "fall" but that--in one of those things that makes English so wonderfully maddening -- is a different word than the word you've used.
Present Tense: "You fall off a cliff" and "You fell a tree"
Past Tense: "You fell off a cliff yesterday" and "You felled a tree yesterday."
Fall means "move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level" while Fell means "to cut down".
Hope this helps.
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edited Apr 01 '12 at 21:49
Jeff Pribyl
Grammarly Fellow
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Jeff its really helpful. But if we cut down a tree it also move downward rapidly...
Shantanu, your line of reasoning is what caused the colloquiall "to fall a tree". But as Tolley noted, the verb is not "to fall" but "to fell" when it comes to making trees fall over.
As near as I can tell, both "to fall" and "to fell" came from the same Old English root "faellen" but split split into their separate forms at least 700 years ago.
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