bell

• enPR: bĕl, IPA^(key): /bɛl/

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• Rhymes: -ɛl
• Homophone: belle

From Middle English belle, from Old English belle (“bell”), from Proto-Germanic *bellǭ. Cognate with West Frisian belle, bel, Dutch bel, Low German Belle, Bel, Danish bjelde, Swedish bjällra, Norwegian bjelle, Icelandic bjalla.

bell (plural bells)

1. A percussive instrument made of metal or other hard material, typically but not always in the shape of an inverted cup with a flared rim, which resonates when struck.
   • 1848, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells"

     HEAR the sledges with the bells —

     Silver bells!

     What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

2. An instrument that emits a ringing sound, situated on a bicycle's handlebar and used by the cyclist to warn of his or her presence.
3. The sounding of a bell as a signal.
   • 2011 December 18, Ben Dirs, “Carl Froch outclassed by dazzling Andre Ward”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Referee Steve Smoger was an almost invisible presence in the ring as both men went at it, although he did have a word with Froch when he landed with a shot after the bell at the end of the eighth.

4. (chiefly Britain, informal) A telephone call.

   I’ll give you a bell later.

5. A signal at a school that tells the students when a class is starting or ending.
6. (music) The flared end of a brass or woodwind instrument.
7. (nautical) Any of a series of strokes on a bell (or similar), struck every half hour to indicate the time (within a four hour watch)
8. The flared end of a pipe, designed to mate with a narrow spigot.
9. (computing) The bell character.
10. Anything shaped like a bell, such as the cup or corolla of a flower.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i]:

      In a cowslip's bell I lie.

11. (architecture) The part of the capital of a column included between the abacus and neck molding; also used for the naked core of nearly cylindrical shape, assumed to exist within the leafage of a capital.
12. (Scotland, archaic) A bubble.
    • 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet

      He swam to the place where Mary disappeared but there was neither boil nor gurgle on the water, nor even a bell of departing breath, to mark the place where his beloved had sunk.

• (in heraldry): campane
• (rare): tintinnabule

• (internally suspended tool for striking): clapper, tongue
• (flaring open end): mouth

• (structure housing bells): bell tower, campanile
• (sets of bells): carillon, peal

• → Fiji Hindi: belo
• → Japanese: ベル (beru)
• → Korean: 벨 (bel)

• (study of bells): campanology
• (expert in bells): campanist, campanologist
• (player of bells): bell-ringer, carilloner, carilloneur, carillonist, ringer, tintinnabulary, tintinnabulist
• (playing of bells): bell-ringing, tintinnabulation, tintinnabulism, tintinnation
• (bell-related): campanistic, campanologic, campanarian, tintinnabular, tintinnabular, tintinnabulary, tintinnabulatory, tintinnabulous
• (related to a peal of bells or bell tower): campanilian
• (bell-shaped): bell-shaped, campanal, campaniform, campaniliform, campanular, campanulate, campanulated, campanulous, tintinnabulate
• (containing bells): campaned
• (sounding like a small bell): jingling, tinkling, tintinnabulant, tintinnabulating, tintinnating

bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)

1. (transitive) To attach a bell to.

   Who will bell the cat?

2. (transitive) To shape so that it flares out like a bell.

   to bell a tube

3. (slang, transitive) To telephone.
   • 2006, Dominic Lavin, Last Seen in Bangkok:

     "Vinny, you tosser, it's Keith. I thought you were back today. I'm in town. Bell us on the mobile.

4. (intransitive) To develop bells or corollas; to take the form of a bell; to blossom.

   Hops bell.

• bell out

From Middle English bellen, from Old English bellan (“to bellow; make a hollow noise; roar; bark; grunt”), from Proto-Germanic *bellaną (“to sound; roar; bark”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound; roar; bark”). Cognate with Scots bell (“to shout; speak loudly”), Dutch bellen (“to bark”), German Low German bellen (“to ring”), German bellen (“to bark”), Swedish böla (“to low; bellow; roar”).

bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)

1. (intransitive) To bellow or roar.
   • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature:

     This animal is said to harbour in the place where he resides. When he cries, he is said to bell; the print of his hoof is called the slot; his tail is called the single; his excrement the fumet; his horns are called his head [...].

   • 1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, OCLC 752934375:

     As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled / Once, twice and again!

   • 1872, Robert Browning, Fifine at the Fair:

     You acted part so well, went alɬ-fours upon earth / The live-long day, brayed, belled.

   • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber and Faber 2005, page 128:

     Then, incredibly, a rutting stag belled by the trunks.

2. (transitive) To utter in a loud manner; to thunder forth.
   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, Astrophel:

     Their leaders bell their bleating tunes In doleful sound.

• belling

bell (plural bells)

1. The bellow or bay of certain animals, such as a hound on the hunt or a stag in rut.

From Latin bellus. Compare Occitan bèll, bèu, French beau, Spanish bello.

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈbeʎ/

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• Rhymes: -eʎ
• Homophone: vell

bell (feminine bella, masculine plural bells, feminine plural belles)

1. (literary or dialectal) beautiful

   Synonyms: ben plantat, bonic, bufó, formós, maco, preciós

Disused in most dialects because of its homophony with vell (“old”), but still frequently found in literary texts.

• bellament
• bellesa
• belles arts
• embellir

• “bell” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “bell”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2023
• “bell” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “bell” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

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bell

1. singular imperative of bellen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of bellen

From Arabic بَلَّ‎ (balla).

• IPA^(key): /bɛll/

bell (imperfect jbell, past participle miblul)

1. to dip (immerse something shortly or partly into a liquid)

• IPA^(key): /bɛɬ/
• (South Wales, also) IPA^(key): /beːɬ/

bell

1. Soft mutation of pell.