Meaning and Origin
What does the name Bell mean? Keep reading to find the user submitted meanings, dictionary definitions, and more.
User Submitted Origins
User Submitted Meanings
- A submission from Massachusetts, U.S. says the name Bell means "Beautiful" and is of Portuguese origin.
- A submission from Virginia, U.S. says the name Bell means "Smart, Kind" and is of French origin.
- 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.
- A hollow perforated sphere of metal containing a loose ball which causes it to sound when moved.
- Anything in the form of a bell, as the cup or corol of a flower."In a cowslip's bellI lie." [Shak.]
- [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.
- pl.[Naut] The strikes of the bell which mark the time; or the time so designated.
Note: ☞ Bells have been made of various metals, but the best have always been, as now, of an alloy of copper and tin.
Note: ☞ On shipboard, time is marked by a bell, which is struck eight times at 4, 8, and 12 o'clock. Half an hour after it has struck “eight bells” it is struck once, and at every succeeding half hour the number of strokes is increased by one, till at the end of the four hours, which constitute a watch, it is struck eight times.
Note: ☞ Bell is much used adjectively or in combinations; as, bell clapper; bell foundry; bell hanger; bell-mouthed; bell tower, etc., which, for the most part, are self-explaining.
Etymology: AS. belle, fr. bellan to bellow. See Bellow
- To make bell-mouthed; as, to bell a tube.
Etymology: AS. bellan. See Bellow
- A hollow device made of metal that makes a ringing sound when struck
- The flared opening of a tubular device
- A percussion instrument consisting of a set of tuned bells that are struck with a hammer; used as an orchestral instrument
- A push button at an outer door that gives a ringing or buzzing signal when pushed
- The sound of a bell being struck ("saved by the bell" and "she heard the distant toll of church bells")
- United States inventor (born in Scotland) of the telephone (1847-1922)
- English painter; sister of Virginia Woolf; prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group (1879-1961)
- A phonetician and father of Alexander Graham Bell (1819-1905)
- The shape of a bell
- (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.
- Attach a bell to ("bell cows")
- A Scottish and northern English surname for a bell ringer, bellmaker, or from someone who lived "at the Bell (inn)"
- The Bell telephone company (after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.)
- A male given name transferred from the surname, of occasional usage.
- A female given name, variant of Belle; mostly used as a middle name in the 19th century.
- (US, Canada) a telephone utility; a Baby Bell.