Other forms: called, calling, calls
To call someone is to ring them and speak to them down the line. You call your mum on Sunday, you call a taxi in the rain, you call back when the signal drops halfway through a sentence.
Then it opens right out. Call is also to shout — she called his name across the car park — and to name: they called the dog Biscuit, and what is this called in English? It summons things (call an ambulance, call a meeting, call the police) and it judges them (the referee called it a foul, let us call it a draw). As a noun it is the phone conversation, the cry of a bird, and the decision: a tough call, a close call, the manager's call. The phrasal verbs run deep — call off a wedding, call on a neighbour, call out a lie, call up a friend or an army. British English uses ring for the phone as much as call; American English uses call for both.
1verbcallTo telephone someone.~7%
“Call me when you land.”
2verbcryTo say something loudly so that someone hears you.~2%
“She called from the kitchen that dinner was ready.”
synonyms: shout, cry out
3verbnameTo give someone or something a name, or to describe them as something.~7%
“They called the boy after his grandfather.”
4verbsummonTo order something to happen or someone to come.~2%
“The head teacher called an emergency meeting.”
5verbdeclareTo announce a decision or judgement.~2%
“The umpire called the ball out.”
6nounconversationA telephone conversation.~76%
“There were three missed calls from the same number.”
7nounshoutA shout, or the sound an animal makes.~2%
“The call of a fox at night sounds almost human.”
8nounhardA decision or judgement, especially a hard one.~2%
“Dropping the captain was the manager's call.”
synonyms: decision, judgement
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: phone
Call arrived twice over. Old English had ċeallian, 'to call, shout', and the Vikings brought Old Norse kalla, 'to call, shout, name'; the two ran together into Middle English callen. Both go back to Proto-Germanic *kalzōną and further still to Proto-Indo-European *golH-so-, 'voice, cry'. The word has been a raised voice for as far back as anyone can follow it.
Middle English
callen
English, today
call
From Middle English callen. From Middle English callen, from Old English ċeallian (“to call, shout”) and Old Norse kalla (“to call; shout; refer to as; name”); both from Proto-Germanic kalzōną (“to call, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European golH-so- (“voice, cry”), from gel(H)- (“to vocalize, call, shout”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA