mule bell

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English

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Alternative forms

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Noun

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mule bell (plural mule bells)

  1. A bell hung on a mule. [from 19th c.]
    • 1850, John Greenleaf Whittier, Derne:
      The sounds of Moslem life are still; / No mule-bell tinkles down the hill; / Stretched in the broad court of the khan, / The dusty Bornou caravan / Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man […].
    • 1852, Washington Irving, Tales from the Alhambra:
      There is something wildly pleasing in listening to these ditties among the rude and lonely scenes that they illustrate, accompanied, as they are, by the occasional jingle of the mulebell.