bell

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A hollow metal musical instrument, usually cup-shaped with a flared opening, that emits a metallic tone when struck.
2. n. Something resembling such an instrument in shape or sound, as:
3. n. The round, flared opening of a wind instrument at the opposite end from the mouthpiece.
4. n. A percussion instrument consisting of metal tubes or bars that emit tones when struck.
5. n. A hollow, usually inverted vessel, such as one used for diving deep below the surface of a body of water.
6. n. The corolla of a flower: "In a cowslip's bell I lie” ( Shakespeare).
7. n. Nautical A stroke on a hollow metal instrument to mark the hour.
8. n. Nautical The time indicated by the striking of this instrument, divided into half hours.
9. v. To put a bell on.
10. v. To cause to flare like a bell.
11. v. To assume the form of bell; flare.
12. idiom. bell the cat To perform a daring act.
13. n. The bellowing or baying cry of certain animals, such as a deer in rut or a beagle on the hunt.
14. v. To utter long, deep, resonant sounds; bellow.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A hollow metallic instrument which gives forth a ringing sound, generally of a musical quality, when struck with a clapper, hammer, or other appliance. Its usual shape resembles that of an inverted cup with a flaring rim. If the bell is stationary, it is often made saucer-shaped, and in this case is commonly termed a gong. Bells of this form are generally used as call-bells or signal-bells. Bells are made for many purposes and in a great variety of forms and sizes. They usually consist of an alloy of copper and tin, called bell-metal (which see). Church-bells are known to have been in use in Italy about a. d. 400, and in France in the sixth century. The earlier bells were often four-sided, made of thin plates of iron riveted together. The manufacture of the largest and finest bells has been developed since the fifteenth century. The largest ever made is the great bell of Moscow, called the Czar Kolokol, cast in 1733, and computed to weigh about 440,000 pounds. It is about 19 feet in diameter and the same in height. It is supposed never to have been hung, and is now used as a chapel, having been raised in 1836 after lying half buried since 1737, when a piece was broken out of its side in a fire. The largest bell in actual use weighs 128 tons, and is also in Moscow. The bell of the Buddhist monastery Chi-on, in Kioto, Japan, was cast in 1633, and weighs 125,000 catties, or over 74 tons of 2,240 pounds each. Among the great French bells, the bourdon of Notre Dame, Paris, weighs about 17 tons; the largest bell of Sens cathedral, 16 tons; and that of Amiens cathedral, 11 tons. In England, the “Big Ben” of Westminster weighs over 13 tons, but is cracked; the “Great Peter,” at York, 10 tons; and the “Great Tom,” at Oxford, 7 tons. The new “Kaiser-glocke” of Cologne cathedral weighs 25 tons. For church-bells made to be rung in unison, see chime. In heraldry, the bells generally represented are hawks' bells, in shape like a small sleigh-bell; a hawk represented with these bells attached is said to be belled. When a bell of ordinary form is used as a bearing, it is called church-bell for distinction.
2. n. Anything in the form of bell or compared to a bell. Specifically— A bell-shaped corolla of a flower.
3. n. In architecture, the plain echinus of a Corinthian or composite capital, around which the foliage and volutes are arranged. Also called basket.
4. n. The large end of a funnel, or the end of a pipe, tube, or any musical instrument, when its edge is turned out and enlarged so as to resemble a bell.
5. n. The strobile, cone, or catkin containing the seed of the hop.
6. n. The pendulous dermal appendage under the throat of the male moose.
7. n. In hydroid polyps, the umbrella or gelatinous disk.
8. n. plural A number of small bells in the form of hawks' bells or sleigh-bells, fastened to a handle and constituting a toy for amusing an infant.
9. n. pl. Naut., the term employed on shipboard, as o'clock is on shore, to denote the divisions of daily time, from their being marked by bells, which are struck every half-hour. The day, beginning at midnight, is divided into watches of four hours each, except the watch from 4 to 8 p. m., which is subdivided into two dog-watches. A full watch thus consists of eight half-hours, and its progress is noted by the number of strokes on the bell. For instance, 1 o'clock p. m. is equivalent to two bells in the afternoon watch; 3 o'clock, to six bells; 4 o'clock, to eight bells, etc.
10. n. in the Roman Catholic Church, a bell which has received the solemn blessing of the church, in which the bishop prays that its sound may avail to summon the faithful, to excite their devotion, to drive away storms, and that the powers of the air, hearing it, may tremble and flee before the standard of the holy cross of the Son of God engraved upon it, etc.
11. n. In seed, or having the seed-capsules formed, as hops.
12. To produce bells; be in bell: said of hops when the seed-vessels are forming. See bell, n., 2 .
13. To put a bell on.
14. To swell or puff out into the shape of a bell.
15. To bellow; roar.
16. Specifically To bellow like a deer in rutting-time.
17. To bellow forth.
18. n. The bellow of the wild deer in rutting-time.
19. To swell up, like a boil or beal.
20. n. A bubble formed in a liquid.
21. To bubble.
22. Fair; beautiful.
23. n. A bell-shaped rock-mass of somewhat doubtful origin occurring occasionally in sedimentary rocks. The inverted position of of these masses leads to the theory that they were the result of some local disturbance of sedimentation. Some may be due to contemporaneous erosion.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. n. The sounding of a bell as a signal.
3. n. chiefly UK, informal A telephone call.
4. n. A signal at a school that tells the students when it's time to change classes during the day.
5. n. music The flared end of a brass or woodwind instrument.
6. n. 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)
7. n. The flared end of a pipe, designed to mate with a narrow spigot.
8. v. transitive To attach a bell to.
9. v. To shape so that flares out like a bell.
10. v. slang, transitive To telephone.
11. v. intransitive To bellow or roar.
12. n. The bellow or bay of certain animals, such as a hound on the hunt or a stag in rut.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A hollow metallic vessel, usually shaped somewhat like a cup with a flaring mouth, containing a clapper or tongue, and giving forth a ringing sound on being struck.
2. n. A hollow perforated sphere of metal containing a loose ball which causes it to sound when moved.
3. n. Anything in the form of bell, as the cup or corol of a flower.
4. n. (Arch.) That 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.
5. n. (Naut.) The strikes of the bell which mark the time; or the time so designated.
6. v. To put a bell upon.
7. v. To make bell-mouthed.
8. v. To develop bells or corollas; to take the form of bell; to blossom.
9. v. obsolete To utter by bellowing.
10. v. To call or bellow, as the deer in rutting time; to make a bellowing sound; to roar.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the sound of a bell being struck
2. n. the shape of a bell
3. n. a phonetician and father of Alexander Graham Bell (1819-1905)
4. n. a hollow device made of metal that makes a ringing sound when struck
5. n. the flared opening of a tubular device
6. n. English painter; sister of Virginia Woolf; prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group (1879-1961)
7. n. United States inventor (born in Scotland) of the telephone (1847-1922)
8. 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.
9. n. a push button at an outer door that gives a ringing or buzzing signal when pushed
10. n. a percussion instrument consisting of a set of tuned bells that are struck with a hammer; used as an orchestral instrument
11. v. attach a bell to