Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In submarine operations, the use of the diving-bell.
  • noun Formerly, bellowing; in modern use. the noise made by a deer in rutting-time.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A bellowing, as of a deer in rutting time.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of bell.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a noisy mock serenade (made by banging pans and kettles) to a newly married couple

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From bell.]

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Examples

  • He played it as he shaped it: the last low string whose reverberations set his own sword belling in anguish and shattered every other weapon inside and out of the halt Silence settled like old dust over the room.

    Harpist in the Wind McKillip, Patricia A. 1979

  • The "belling" of male stags, if I remember rightly, is a challenge, and so I daresay is the roaring of the lion during the breeding season.

    Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 James Marchant

  • Rather, it is for certain things, like the silver of old cedar shingles, the tang of wood smoke and the belling of hounds on their return from the fields.

    An Observant Man Gita M. Smith 2011

  • By the end of the book, the only thing Coetzee can affirm, the only thing Costello affirms, is the belling of frogs emerging from mud: the animal life of sheer survival.

    David Shields: The Writer's Job: Aggravate The Fear Of Death David Shields 2011

  • With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you,

    I'm Gonna Do It This Year! Lauren Thomas 2009

  • Schneider says a serious knee injury — ACL, MCL — screwed her capability to do the door belling required.

    Sabra Schneider Drops Out of Race in 34th District « PubliCola 2010

  • If anyone can get to the bottom of this jingle-belling, toy-toting madness, it's the gang at Fox News.

    Bruce Kluger & David Slavin: Fox News' 2010 War on Christmas! Bruce Kluger 2010

  • Chuck Schumer must be tagged as in belling the cat with his part in the collapse of the US Financial system.

    NY-SEN: Kudlow vs. Schumer? | RedState 2010

  • Its sails filled with a Mage-conjured breeze, belling out like great white wings, carrying its crew away from Armethalieh and out to freedom.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  •  She is all he needs to take care of for a while, and as he tucks her in and makes her take her vitamins and listens to the self-help tapes with her, he wonders why he has never realized how satisfying home can be, but she does get better and puts on pretty dresses and has the long blonde hair cut into a belling pageboy bob.

    Addicts 2010

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