Belle

How to spell belle

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce belle

What does belle mean?

1. nounA beautiful and much-admired woman, especially the most admired one present at an event.

Belle in a sentence

• With her glowing smile, she was the belle of the ball that evening.

• The novel describes a southern belle courted by every gentleman in the county.

Where does belle come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes straight from French, where belle is the feminine form of the adjective beau, meaning 'beautiful' or 'handsome'. Its deeper root is the Latin bellus, which meant 'pretty', 'fine', or 'charming', a diminutive form related to the older bonus, meaning 'good'. English adopted belle in the 1600s as a noun describing a strikingly attractive and admired woman, especially the most admired one at a social gathering, hence the familiar phrase 'the belle of the ball'. The same Latin root sits behind such words as 'beauty', 'beau', and even 'embellish', which literally means to make something beautiful. Because the silent French -e is preserved, the spelling looks exactly like the masculine plural 'belles' minus the s, and it is the homophone with 'bell' (the metal instrument) that most often trips writers up.

How the word is built

• belle (from French belle, feminine of beau: beautiful), from Latin bellus (pretty, fine)

Words that sound like belle

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

• bell: A hollow metal object, usually cup-shaped, that makes a ringing sound when struck, or any device that produces such a signalling tone.