bell
bel
- n a hollow device made of metal that makes a ringing sound when struck
- n a push button at an outer door that gives a ringing or buzzing signal when pushed
- n the sound of a bell being struck
saved by the bell
she heard the distant toll of church bells - n (nautical) each of the eight half-hour units of nautical time signaled by strokes of a ship's bell; eight bells signals 4:00, 8:00, or 12:00 o'clock, either a.m. or p.m.
- n the shape of a bell
- n a phonetician and father of Alexander Graham Bell (1819-1905)
- n English painter; sister of Virginia Woolf; prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group (1879-1961)
- n United States inventor (born in Scotland) of the telephone (1847-1922)
- n a percussion instrument consisting of a set of tuned bells that are struck with a hammer; used as an orchestral instrument
- n the flared opening of a tubular device
- v attach a bell to
bell cows
- On Christmas day in the morning, bellringers spit on their hands; they catch hold of the ropes that go up into rimed steeples.
- For 123 years the copper-hued tsurigane (hanging bell) of Tokyo's Nishi-arai Dai-shi Temple rang out over the city, its tone as rich as a mighty organ.
- As an organ is to a piano, so is a carillon to an ordinary set of bells.