bell

• enPR: bĕl, IPA^(key): /bɛl/

• Audio (US)

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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 their 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 British, 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.

   Synonyms: alert, beep, \a

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, [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.

13. (British, vulgar, slang) Clipping of bell-end (“stupid or contemptible person”).

• (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 ring”), 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:

     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, published 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.

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

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [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, 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.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bell

1. (Cantonese) to nudge; to shove
   • 2015, “Happy Tummy Dance”‎ (TV advertisement):

     我要我嘅肚仔　每日變fit啲　bell右又bell左　腸道健康啲 [Cantonese, trad.]
     我要我嘅肚仔　每日变fit啲　bell右又bell左　肠道健康啲 [Cantonese, simp.]

     ngo⁵ jiu³ ngo⁵ ge³ tou⁵ zai², mui⁵ jat⁶ bin³ fit¹ di¹, beu⁶ jau⁶ jau⁶ beu⁶ zo², coeng^4-2 dou⁶ gin⁶ hong¹ di¹ [Jyutping]

     (please add an English translation of this usage example)

• Bolton, Kingsley, Hutton, Christopher (2005) A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs and City Life, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, →ISBN, page 19

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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.