different between knell vs boom

English

Etymology

From Middle English knellen, knillen, knyllen, knullen, from Old English cnyllan (“to strike; knock; clap”), from Proto-Germanic *knuzlijan? (“to beat; push; mash”), from Proto-Indo-European *gen- (“to squeeze, pinch, kink, ball up”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /n?l/
• Rhymes: -?l
• Homophone: Nell

Verb

knell (third-person singular simple present knells, present participle knelling, simple past and past participle knelled)

1. (intransitive) To ring a bell slowly, especially for a funeral; to toll.
   • 1647, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, The Spanish Curate, Act V, Scene 2, in The Dramatick Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, London: T. Evans et al., 1778, Volume 2, p. 288,^[1]

     I’ll make thee sick at heart, before I leave thee,

     And groan, and die indeed, and be worth nothing,

     Not worth a blessing nor a bell to knell for thee […]

   • 1816, Walter Scott, The Black Dwarf, Chapter 7,^[2]

     “ […] God!—the words of the warlock are knelling in my ears!”

   • 1824, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Autumn: A Dirge” in Posthumous Poems, London: John & Henry L. Hunt, p. 166,^[3]

     The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,

     The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

     For the year;

   • 1846, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The New Timon. A Poetical Romance, London: Henry Colburn, 4th edition, 1846, Part II, p. 86,^[4]

     Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,

     Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word—ALONE!

2. (transitive) To signal or proclaim something (especially a death) by ringing a bell.
   • 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Woodnotes, Number II” in The Dial, Volume 2, Number 2, October 1841, p. 212,^[5]

     Let thy friends be as the dead in doom,

     And build to them a final tomb;

     Let the starred shade that nightly falls

     Still celebrate their funerals,

     And the bell of beetle and of bee

     Knell their melodious memory.

   • 1909, Alfred Allinson (translator), The Well of Saint Clare by Anatole France (1895), London: John Lane, Prologue,^[6]

     The church bells knelled the peaceful ending of the day, while the purple shades of night descended sadly and majestically on the low chain of neighbouring hills.

   • 1931, Robert E. Howard, The Gods of Bal-Sagoth in Weird Tales, Volume 18, Issue 3, October 1931, Chapter 3,^[7]

     His right hand, clenched into an iron mallet, battered desperately at the fearful face bent toward his; the beast-like teeth shattered under his blows and blood splattered, but still the red eyes gloated and the taloned fingers sank deeper and deeper until a ringing in Turlogh’s ears knelled his soul’s departure.

3. (transitive) To summon by, or as if by, ringing a bell.

Translations

Noun

knell (plural knells)

1. The sound of a bell knelling; a toll (particularly one signalling a death).
   • c. 1608, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act V, Scene 4,^[8]

     ...he is able to pierce a corselet with his eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery.

   • 1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Line 1,^[9]

     The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

2. (figuratively) A sign of the end or demise of something or someone.
   • 1879, John Richard Green, History of the English People, Volume 8, Modern England, 1760-1815, London: Macmillan, 1896, Chapter 2, pp. 41-42,^[10]

     But at the close of the war there was less thought of what [Britain] had retained than of what she had lost. She was parted from her American Colonies; and at the moment such a parting seemed to be the knell of her greatness.

   • 2000, Simon Caulkin, “Taking over by talking back,” The Guardian, 1 October, 2000,^[11]

     The internet sounds the knell for conventional brands, predicts Professor Alec Reed, who has set up an Academy of Enterprise to chart the emerging individual economy. By making price and other comparisons ever easier, the internet strips them of mystique and turns them into commodities.

Derived terms

• death knell

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: boo?m
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /bu?m/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /bum/
• Rhymes: -u?m

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic, perhaps borrowed; compare German bummen, Dutch bommen (“to hum, buzz”).

Verb

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. To make a loud, hollow, resonant sound.
2. (transitive, figuratively, of speech) To exclaim with force, to shout, to thunder.
3. Of a Eurasian bittern, to make its deep, resonant territorial vocalisation.
4. (transitive) To make something boom.

5. (slang, US, obsolete) To publicly praise.
   • 1922, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Problem of Thor Bridge

     If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming you.

6. To rush with violence and noise, as a ship under a press of sail, before a free wind.
   • 1841, Benjamin Totten, Naval Text-book and Dictionary […]

     She comes booming down before it.

Derived terms

• boom box
• boom-boom
• sonic boom

Translations

Noun

boom (plural booms)

1. A low-pitched, resonant sound, such as of an explosion.

2. A rapid expansion or increase.

3. One of the calls of certain monkeys or birds.
   • 1990, Mark A. Berkley, William C. Stebbins, Comparative Perception

     Interestingly, the blue monkey's boom and pyow calls are both long-distance signals (Brown, 1989), yet the two calls differ in respect to their susceptibility to habitat-induced degradation.

Translations

Interjection

boom

1. Used to suggest the sound of an explosion.

2. Used to suggest something happening suddenly and unexpectedly.
   • 1993, Vibe (volume 1, number 2)

     So we went around the corner, looked in the garbage, and, boom, there's about 16 of the tapes he didn't like!

   • 2013, Peter Westoby, Gerard Dowling, Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development

     Hostile race relations and chronic unemployment are ignored in the suburbs of Paris, London and Sydney, and boom! there are riots.

Derived terms

• sis boom bah

Translations

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Dutch boom (“tree; pole”). Doublet of beam.

Noun

boom (plural booms)

2. (nautical) A spar extending the foot of a sail; a spar rigged outboard from a ship's side to which boats are secured in harbour.
3. A movable pole used to support a microphone or camera.
4. (by extension) A microphone supported on such a pole.
5. A horizontal member of a crane or derrick, used for lifting.
6. (electronics) The longest element of a Yagi antenna, on which the other, smaller ones are transversally mounted.
7. A floating barrier used to obstruct navigation, for military or other purposes; or used for the containment of an oil spill or to control the flow of logs from logging operations.
8. A wishbone-shaped piece of windsurfing equipment.
9. The section of the arm on a backhoe closest to the tractor.
10. A gymnastics apparatus similar to a balance beam.

Derived terms

• boomhouse
• boomstick

Related terms

• (nautical): buoy, cathead
• crane

Translations

Verb

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. To extend, or push, with a boom or pole.

2. (usually with "up" or "down") To raise or lower with a crane boom.

Etymology 3

Perhaps a figurative development of Etymology 1, above.

Noun

boom (plural booms)

1. (economics, business) A period of prosperity, growth, progress, or high market activity.

Antonyms

• (period of prosperity): recession

Descendants

• ? German: Boom
• Indonesian: bum
• ? Japanese: ??? (b?mu)
• ? Polish: boom

Translations

Verb

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. (intransitive) To flourish, grow, or progress.

   Synonyms: flourish, prosper
2. (transitive, dated) To cause to advance rapidly in price.

Derived terms

• boom town

Translations

Anagrams

• MOBO, mobo, moob

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch boom, from Middle Dutch bôom, from Old Dutch b?m, boum, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??m/

Noun

boom (plural bome, diminutive boompie)

1. tree

Dutch

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch bôom, from Old Dutch b?m, from Proto-West Germanic *baum, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bo?m/
• Hyphenation: boom
• Rhymes: -o?m

Noun

boom m (plural bomen, diminutive boompje n)

1. tree
2. any solid, pole-shaped, usually wooden object
   1. beam
   2. mast

      Synonym: mast

   3. boom

      Synonym: giek

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: boom
• ? English: boom
• ? Indonesian: bom (“tree, pole”), bum
• ? Sranan Tongo: bon

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English boom.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bu?m/
• Hyphenation: boom

Noun

boom m (plural booms, diminutive boompje n)

1. boom, as in a market explosion

Derived terms

• babyboom
• boomer

References

• M. J. Koenen & J. Endepols, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (tevens Vreemde-woordentolk), Groningen, Wolters-Noordhoff, 1969 (26th edition) [Dutch dictionary in Dutch]

See also

• boom on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Boom in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

French

Alternative forms

• boum

Etymology

Borrowed from English boom.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bum/

Noun

boom m (plural booms)

1. boom (dramatically fast increase)

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English boom, from Dutch boom - see above.

Noun

boom m (invariable)

1. A boom (sound)
2. A boom, rapid expansion
3. A boom (crane)

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch b?m, from Proto-West Germanic *baum.

Noun

bôom m

1. tree
2. beam, pole
3. boom barrier

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: boom
• Limburgish: boum

Further reading

• “boom”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “boom (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page I

Polish

Etymology

From English boom.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bum/

Noun

boom m inan

1. (economics, business) boom (period of prosperity)
2. boom (rapid expansion or increase)

Declension

Further reading

• boom in Wielki s?ownik j?zyka polskiego, Instytut J?zyka Polskiego PAN
• boom in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English boom.

Noun

boom m (plural booms)

1. (economics, business) boom (period of prosperity)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English boom.

Noun

boom m (plural booms)

1. boom (period of prosperity or high market activity)

See also

• bum