Bell vs Sell - What's the difference?
bell | sell |
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.
* 1848 , Edgar Allan Poe, "(The Bells)"
The sounding of a bell as a signal.
* {{quote-news, year=2011
, date=December 18
, author=Ben Dirs
, title=Carl Froch outclassed by dazzling Andre Ward
, work=BBC Sport
(chiefly, British, informal) A telephone call.
A signal at a school that tells the students when a class is starting or ending.
(music) The flared end of a brass or woodwind instrument.
(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)
The flared end of a pipe, designed to mate with a narrow spigot.
(computing) A device control code that produces a beep (or rings a small electromechanical bell on older teleprinters etc.).
Anything shaped like a bell, such as the cup or corolla of a flower.
* Shakespeare
(architecture) The 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.
To attach a bell to.
To shape so that it flares out like a bell.
(slang) To telephone.
* 2006 , Dominic Lavin, Last Seen in Bangkok
To develop bells or corollas; to take the form of a bell; to blossom.
To bellow or roar.
* 1774 , Oliver Goldsmith, A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature :
* (rfdate) Rudyard Kipling
* 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber and Faber 2005, page 128:
(intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
* Bible, (w) xix. 21
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (ergative) To be sold.
To promote a particular viewpoint.
(slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
* (Charles Dickens)
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=January 12, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC
, title= (professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
An act of selling.
An easy task.
* 1922': What a '''sell for Lena! - (Katherine Mansfield), ''The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)
(colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax.
* 1919 ,
(obsolete) A seat or stool.
(archaic) A saddle.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.ii:
As an adjective bell
is beautiful.As a verb sell is
(intransitive) to transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.As a noun sell is
an act of selling or sell can be (obsolete) a seat or stool.bell
English
(wikipedia bell)Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- HEAR the sledges with the bells —
- Silver bells !
- What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
citation, page= , passage=Referee Steve Smoger was an almost invisible presence in the ring as both men went at it, although he did have a word with Froch when he landed with a shot after the bell at the end of the eighth.}}
- I’ll give you a bell later.
- In a cowslip's bell I lie.
Derived terms
* * bell curve * bellbottoms * bellflower * bell-ringer * bell tower * * bicycle bell * bluebell * church bell * doorbell * handbell * harebell * ring someone's bell * saved by the bell * sound as a bell * with bells onSee also
* alarm * buzz * buzzer * carillon * chime * clapper * curfew * dinger * ding-dong * gong * peal * ringer * siren * tintinnabulum * tocsin * toll * vesperVerb
(en verb)- Who will bell the cat?
- to bell a tube
- "Vinny, you tosser, it's Keith. I thought you were back today. I'm in town. Bell us on the mobile.''
- Hops bell .
Etymology 2
From (etyl) (m). Cognate with (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- This animal is said to harbour'' in the place where he resides. When he cries, he is said to ''bell'' ; the print of his hoof is called the ''slot''; his tail is called the ''single''; his excrement the ''fumet''; his horns are called his ''head [...].
- As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled / Once, twice and again!
- Then, incredibly, a rutting stag belled by the trunks.
sell
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) sellen, from (etyl) , Icelandic selja.Verb
- If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.
A new prescription, passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
Liverpool 2-1 Liverpool, passage=Raul Meireles was the victim of the home side's hustling on this occasion giving the ball away to the impressive David Vaughan who slipped in Taylor-Fletcher. The striker sold Daniel Agger with the best dummy of the night before placing his shot past keeper Pepe Reina.}}
Antonyms
* buyDerived terms
* sell-by date * sell-out * sell-outs * sell-through * sell down * sell down the river * sell ice to Eskimos * sell like hotcakes * sell one's soul * sell out * sell refrigerators to Eskimos * sell wolf ticketsQuotations
* To trick, or cheat someone. *Noun
(en noun)- This is going to be a tough sell .
- "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."
Etymology 2
From (etyl) selle, from (etyl) sella.Alternative forms
* selle (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- (Fairfax)
- turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell , / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].