Other forms: bells, belling
A bell is a metal object that rings when struck. Ring the bell, church bells, a bicycle bell.
Its note depends on size and shape, and a large bell is tuned by shaving metal from the inside. English change ringing — ringing a set of bells through every possible order — is a mathematical practice found almost nowhere else. Note ring a bell, meaning to sound familiar; saved by the bell; and clear as a bell, which is about the highest praise a sound can get.
1nounbellA metal object that rings when struck.
“The school bell rang, and the children ran outside to play.”
2verbsoundTo sound familiar, in the phrase ring a bell.
“Her name rings a bell, but I can't remember where we met.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bell is a sounding instrument.
Old English belle is Germanic and probably related to bellow, from the sound. The word came into French and Italian from English rather than the other way about, which is unusual.
Old English
belle
Middle English
belle
English, today
bell
From Middle English belle, from Old English belle. Cognate with West Frisian belle, bel (“bell”), Dutch bel (“bell”), Low German Belle, Bel (“bell”), Danish bjælde (“bell”), Faroese bjølla (“bell”), Icelandic bjalla (“bell”), Norwegian bjelle (“bell”), Swedish bjällra (“bell”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA