bell
English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
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.
Noun
bell (plural bells)
- 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!
- 1848, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells"
- The sounding of a bell as a signal.
- 2011 December 18, Ben Dirs, “Carl Froch outclassed by dazzling Andre Ward”, in BBC Sport[1]:
- 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.
- (chiefly British, informal) A telephone call.
- I’ll give you a bell later.
- A signal at a school that tells the students when a class is starting or ending.
- (music) The flared end of a brass or woodwind instrument.
- (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)
- The flared end of a pipe, designed to mate with a narrow spigot.
- (computing) The bell character.
- 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, [Act V, scene i]:
- In a cowslip's bell I lie.
- (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.
- An instrument situated on a bicycle's handlebar, used by the cyclist to warn of his or her presence.
- (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.
- 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet
Synonyms
- (in heraldry): campane
- (rare): tintinnabule
Hyponyms
Meronyms
Holonyms
- (structure housing bells): bell tower, campanile
- (sets of bells): carillon, peal
Coordinate terms
Derived terms
- agogo bell
- alarm-bell
- alarm bell
- altar bell
- Angelus bell
- bear away the bell
- bear the bell
- bell animalcule
- bell arch
- bell-bearer
- bellbind
- bell-bind
- bellbird
- bell, book and candle
- bell-bottom, bell-bottomed
- bell-bottomed trousers
- bell bottoms
- bell-bottoms
- bell-bottom trousers
- bellboy
- bell boy
- bell buoy
- bell button
- bell captain
- bellcast
- bell character
- bell chord
- bell-collar
- bell cot
- bellcote
- bell cow
- bellcrank
- bell crank
- bell curve
- bell curve god
- bell deck
- belldom
- belled
- bell end
- bell-end
- bell-faced
- bellflower
- bellfounder
- bell founder
- bell-founder
- bellfounding
- bell frog
- bell gable
- bell-gable
- bellgirl
- Bell Green
- bell heather
- bellhop
- bell hopper
- bell-horse
- bellhouse
- bell housing
- bellist
- bell jar
- bell lerp
- belllike
- bellmaker
- bellmaking
- bellman
- bell metal
- bell miner (Lua error in Module:parameters at line 828: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- bellmouth
- bell-mouthed
- bell pepper
- bellperson
- bell-pull
- bellpull
- bell punch
- bellpush
- bell ringer
- bell-ringing
- bell rope
- bells and smells, smells and bells
- bells and whistles
- bell-shaped
- bell sleeve
- bell-tent
- bell tent
- bell the cat
- bell-topper
- bell tower
- bell trap
- bell tree
- bell-wether
- bellwether
- bellwoman
- bell work
- bellwort
- bluebell
- calling bell
- Canterbury bells
- Christmas bells
- church bell
- clear as a bell
- coral bells, coralbells, coral-bells (Heuchera)
- cowbell
- cow bell
- da bell
- death bell
- diving-bell
- diving bell
- diving bell spider
- division bell
- door-bell
- doorbell
- dressing-bell
- dumb-bell
- dumbbell
- engine bell
- forebell
- give someone a bell
- handbell
- harebell (Lua error in Module:parameters at line 828: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- hawkbell
- heather-bell
- hell's bells
- horse-bell
- jingle bell
- joy-bell
- kettlebell
- larum-bell
- lose the bell
- low-bell
- lowbell
- market bell
- Mass bell
- mindfulness bell
- minute bell
- mountain bell (Darwinia)
- mule bell
- Oconee bells
- on a bell
- passing-bell
- passing bell
- peal of bells
- pull the other one, it's got bells on
- ring a bell
- ring of bells
- ring one's bell
- ring someone's bell
- sacring-bell
- sacring bell
- saints' bell
- sance bell
- sanctus bell
- save by the bell
- saved by the bell
- sheep-bell
- ship's bells
- shop-bell
- silverbell
- Six Bells
- sleighbell
- sleigh bell
- snowbell
- soul bell
- sound as a bell
- swimming bell
- telephone-bell
- tubular bells
- unring a bell
- warning bell
- wind-bell
- with bells on
- yellow bells
- you can't unring a bell
Descendants
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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See also
- (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
Verb
bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)
- (transitive) To attach a bell to.
- Who will bell the cat?
- (transitive) To shape so that it flares out like a bell.
- to bell a tube
- (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.
- (intransitive) To develop bells or corollas; to take the form of a bell; to blossom.
- Hops bell.
See also
Translations
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Etymology 2
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”).
Verb
bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)
- (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:
- 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.
- (transitive) To utter in a loud manner; to thunder forth.
- 1591, Edmund Spenser, Astrophel:
- Their leaders bell their bleating tunes In doleful sound.
- 1591, Edmund Spenser, Astrophel:
Derived terms
Translations
Noun
bell (plural bells)
Translations
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Catalan
Etymology
From Latin bellus. Compare Occitan bèll, bèu, French beau, Spanish bello.
Pronunciation
Adjective
bell (feminine bella, masculine plural bells, feminine plural belles)
Usage notes
Disused in most dialects because of its homophony with vell (“old”), but still frequently found in literary texts.
Derived terms
Further reading
- “bell” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
- “bell”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
- “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.
German
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Verb
bell
Maltese
Root |
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b-l-l |
1 term |
Etymology
Pronunciation
Verb
bell (imperfect jbell, past participle miblul)
- to dip (immerse something shortly or partly into a liquid)
Conjugation
Conjugation of bell | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | plural | |||||||
1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | |||
perfect | m | bellejt | bellejt | bell | bellejna | bellejtu | bellew | |
f | bellet | |||||||
imperfect | m | nbell | tbell | jbell | nbellu | tbellu | jbellu | |
f | tbell | |||||||
imperative | bell | bellu |
Welsh
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bɛɬ/
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "cy-S" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /beːɬ/
Adjective
bell
- Soft mutation of pell.
Mutation
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɛl
- Rhymes:English/ɛl/1 syllable
- English terms with homophones
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- British English
- English informal terms
- en:Music
- en:Nautical
- en:Computing
- en:Architecture
- Scottish English
- English terms with archaic senses
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English slang
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- en:Animal sounds
- en:Bicycle parts
- en:Musical instruments
- en:Percussion instruments
- Catalan terms inherited from Latin
- Catalan terms derived from Latin
- Catalan terms with IPA pronunciation
- Catalan terms with audio links
- Rhymes:Catalan/eʎ
- Rhymes:Catalan/eʎ/1 syllable
- Catalan terms with homophones
- Catalan lemmas
- Catalan adjectives
- German terms with audio links
- German non-lemma forms
- German verb forms
- German colloquialisms
- Maltese terms belonging to the root b-l-l
- Maltese terms inherited from Arabic
- Maltese terms derived from Arabic
- Maltese 1-syllable words
- Maltese terms with IPA pronunciation
- Maltese lemmas
- Maltese verbs
- Maltese form-I verbs
- Maltese geminate form-I verbs
- Maltese geminate verbs
- Welsh terms with IPA pronunciation
- Welsh non-lemma forms
- Welsh mutated adjectives
- Welsh soft-mutation forms