KNELL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does knell mean? 

• KNELL (noun)
  The noun KNELL has 1 sense:

1. the sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death or a funeral or the end of something

  Familiarity information: KNELL used as a noun is very rare.

• KNELL (verb)
  The verb KNELL has 2 senses:

1. ring as in announcing death

2. make (bells) ring, often for the purposes of musical edification

  Familiarity information: KNELL used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KNELL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death or a funeral or the end of something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("knell" is a kind of...):

bell; toll (the sound of a bell being struck)

Derivation:

knell (make (bells) ring, often for the purposes of musical edification)

knell (ring as in announcing death)

• KNELL (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Ring as in announcing death

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "knell" is one way to...):

peal; ring (sound loudly and sonorously)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

knell (the sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death or a funeral or the end of something)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make (bells) ring, often for the purposes of musical edification

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Synonyms:

knell; ring

Context example:

My uncle rings every Sunday at the local church

Hypernyms (to "knell" is one way to...):

sound (cause to sound)

Cause:

go; sound (make a certain noise or sound)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "knell"):

toll (ring slowly)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

knell (the sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death or a funeral or the end of something)

 Context examples 

These words fell like the knell of doom—All those top-knots must be cut off.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What is here told, he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the earth.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I thought of Maud, asleep there in the hut we had reared; I remembered her Good-night, Humphrey; my woman, my mate, went ringing through my brain, but now, alas, it was a knell that sounded.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He had a singular red cap on,—not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)