different between knell vs roar

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

Etymology

From Middle English roren, raren, from Old English r?rian (“to roar; wail; lament”), from Proto-Germanic *rair?n? (“to bellow; roar”), from Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to shout; bellow; yell; bark”), perhaps of imitative origin.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: rô, IPA^(key): /???/
• (General American) enPR: rôr, IPA^(key): /???/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: r?r, IPA^(key): /?o(?)?/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?o?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: raw (in non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

Verb

roar (third-person singular simple present roars, present participle roaring, simple past and past participle roared)

1. (intransitive) To make a loud, deep cry, especially from pain, anger, or other strong emotion.
2. To laugh in a particularly loud manner.

3. Of animals (especially the lion), to make a loud deep noise.
   • {1590 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene Bk 1, Canto VI, XXIV, lines 6&7}

     Roaring bulls he would him make to tame.

4. Generally, of inanimate objects etc., to make a loud resounding noise.
   • How oft I crossed where carts and coaches roar.

5. (figuratively) To proceed vigorously.
6. (transitive) To cry aloud; to proclaim loudly.
   • 1639, John Ford, The Lady's Trial

     This last action will roar thy infamy.
7. To be boisterous; to be disorderly.
   • 1724, Gilbert Burnet, History of My Own Time

     It was a mad, roaring time, full of extravagance.

8. To make a loud noise in breathing, as horses do when they have a certain disease.
9. (Britain Yorkshire, North Midlands, informal) to cry

Translations

Noun

roar (plural roars)

1. A long, loud, deep shout, as of rage or laughter, made with the mouth wide open.
2. The cry of the lion.
   • 1900, L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

     The Winkies were not a brave people, but they had to do as they were told. So they marched away until they came near to Dorothy. Then the Lion gave a great roar and sprang towards them, and the poor Winkies were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could.

3. The deep cry of the bull.
4. A loud resounding noise.

   the roar of a motorbike

   • 1944, Ernie Pyle, Brave Men, University of Nebraska Press (2001), page 107:

     "Those lovely valleys and mountains were filled throughout the day and night with the roar of heavy shooting."

5. A show of strength or character.

Translations

Anagrams

• Raro, orra

Swedish

Verb

roar

1. present tense of roa.