Bell

How to spell bell

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bell

What does bell mean?

1. nounA hollow metal object, usually cup-shaped, that makes a ringing sound when struck, or any device that produces such a signalling tone.

Bell in a sentence

• The church bell rang across the village at noon.

• He pressed the bell at the front door and waited.

Where does bell come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English belle, the name for the hollow metal instrument that rings when struck. It belongs to the everyday Germanic core of English and has close cousins in Dutch bel and Low German belle, all naming the same kind of sounding object. Scholars often link the root to an old Germanic verb meaning 'to roar' or 'to bellow', which fits the loud, resonant noise a bell makes; the words 'bell' and 'bellow' may well be relatives. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable for more than a thousand years, and its simplicity is exactly the small trap: it sounds identical to 'belle' (a beautiful woman, borrowed later from French), so the everyday metal object keeps the plain double-l ending.

How the word is built

• bell (single root, from Old English belle); no prefix or suffix

Words that sound like bell

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• belle: A beautiful and much-admired woman, especially the most admired one present at an event.