different between pill vs bell

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?l/, [p???]
• Rhymes: -?l

Etymology 1

• From Middle English pille (also pillem), a borrowing from Middle Low German pille or Middle Dutch pille (whence Dutch pil), probably from Latin pila, pilula.
• (persuade or convince): Generalized from red pill.

Noun

pill (plural pills)

1. A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.
   • 1864, Benjamin Ellis, The Medical Formulary [1]

     Take two pills every hour in the apyrexia of intermittent fever, until eight are taken.

3. (informal, uncountable, definite, i.e. used with "the") Contraceptive medication, usually in the form of a pill to be taken by a woman; an oral contraceptive pill.
   • 1986, Jurriaan Plesman, Getting Off the Hook: Treatment of Drug Addiction and Social Disorders Through Body and Mind:

     Many specialists are requesting that this vitamin be included in all contraceptive pills, as women on the pill have a tendency to be depressed.

4. Something offensive, unpleasant or nauseous which must be accepted or endured.
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, III [Uniform ed., p. 45]:

     "It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My sister and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, so naturally it has been a little pill."

5. (slang) A contemptible, annoying, or unpleasant person.
   • 2000, Susan Isaacs, Shining Through [2]

     Instead, I saw a woman in her mid-fifties, who was a real pill; while all the others had managed a decent “So pleased,” or even a plain “Hello,” Ginger just inclined her head, as if she was doing a Queen Mary imitation.

6. (slang) A comical or entertaining person.
7. (informal) A small piece of any substance, for example a ball of fibres formed on the surface of a textile by rubbing.
   • 1999, Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True [3]

     One sleeve, threadbare and loaded with what my mother called “sweater pills,” hung halfway to the floor.

8. (archaic, baseball slang) A baseball.
   • 1931, Canadian National Magazine

     "Strike two!" bawled the umpire. I threw the pill back to Tom with a heart which drummed above the noise of the rooters along the side lines.

   • 2002, John Klima, Pitched Battle: 35 of Baseball's Greatest Duels from the Mound [4]

     Mr. Fisher contributed to the Sox effort when he threw the pill past second baseman Rath after Felsch hit him a comebacker.

9. (firearms, slang) A bullet (projectile).
10. (graphical user interface) A rounded rectangle indicating the tag or category that an item belongs to.

Synonyms

• (small object for swallowing): tablet
• (bullet): cap

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pill (third-person singular simple present pills, present participle pilling, simple past and past participle pilled)

1. (intransitive, textiles) Of a woven fabric surface, to form small matted balls of fiber.
   • 1997, Jo Sharp, Knitted Sweater Style: Inspirations in Color [5]

     During processing, inferior short fibers (which can cause pilling and itching) are removed to enhance the natural softness of the yarn and to improve its wash-and-wear performance.

2. To form into the shape of a pill.

   Pilling is a skill rarely used by modern pharmacists.

3. (transitive) To medicate with pills.

   She pills herself with all sorts of herbal medicines.

4. (transitive, Internet slang) To persuade or convince someone of something.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Latin pil? (“depilate”), from pilus (“hair”). Doublet of peel.

Verb

pill (third-person singular simple present pills, present participle pilling, simple past and past participle pilled)

1. (obsolete) To peel; to remove the outer layer of hair, skin, or bark.
2. To peel; to make by removing the skin.

   • [Jacob] pilled white streaks […] in the rods.

3. To be peeled; to peel off in flakes.
4. (obsolete) To pillage; to despoil or impoverish.

Noun

pill (plural pills)

1. (obsolete) The peel or skin.

   • Some be covered with crusts or hard pills, as the locust

   • 1682, A perfect school of Instructions for the Officers of the Mouth

     To make Sallet of Lemon pill, or green Citron. You must have your Lemon Pill preserved very green, Rasp it into a Dish, and raise it up lightly with a Fork […]

Etymology 3

From Middle English *pill, *pyll, from Old English pyll (“a pool, pill”), from Proto-Germanic *pullijaz (“small pool, ditch, creek”), diminutive of Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“pool, stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *bl?nos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Old English pull (“pool, creek”), Scots poll (“slow moving stream, creek, inlet”), Icelandic pollur (“pond, pool, puddle”). More at pool.

Noun

pill (plural pills)

1. (now Britain regional) An inlet on the coast; a small tidal pool or bay.

Albanian

Etymology

A form of pidh from Proto-Albanian *pizda, from Proto-Indo-European *písdeh? (“pudenda”). Cognate to Lithuanian pyzdà (“pudenda”) and Russian ????? (pizda, “pudenda”)

Noun

pill

1. vagina
2. cunt (vulgar)

Synonyms

• pidh

Estonian

Etymology 1

Noun

pill (genitive pilli, partitive pilli)

1. (music) instrument

Declension

Synonyms

• muusikariist

Etymology 2

Noun

pill (genitive pilli, partitive pilli)

1. (medicine) pill

Declension

Synonyms

• tablett

Scottish Gaelic

Noun

pill m

1. genitive singular of peall

Mutation

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?l, IPA^(key): /b?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English belle, from Old English belle (“bell”), from Proto-Germanic *bell?. Cognate with West Frisian belle, bel, Dutch bel, Low German Belle, Bel, Danish bjelde, Swedish bjällra, Norwegian bjelle, Icelandic bjalla.

Noun

bell (plural bells)

1. 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"

     HEAR the sledges with the bells —

     Silver bells!

     What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

2. The sounding of a bell as a signal.
3. (chiefly Britain, informal) A telephone call.

   I’ll give you a bell later.

4. A signal at a school that tells the students when a class is starting or ending.
5. (music) The flared end of a brass or woodwind instrument.
6. (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)
7. The flared end of a pipe, designed to mate with a narrow spigot.
8. (computing) A device control code that produces a beep (or rings a small electromechanical bell on older teleprinters etc.).
9. Anything shaped like a bell, such as the cup or corolla of a flower.
10. (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.
11. An instrument situated on a bicycle's handlebar, used by the cyclist to warn of his or her presence.

Synonyms

• (in heraldry): campane
• (rare): tintinnabule

Hyponyms

Meronyms

• (internally suspended tool for striking): clapper, tongue
• (flaring open end): mouth

Holonyms

• (structure housing bells): bell tower, campanile
• (sets of bells): carillon, peal

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Fiji Hindi: belo
• ? Japanese: ?? (beru)

Translations

See also

• (study of bells): campanology
• (expert in bells): campanist, campanologist
• (player of bells): bell-ringer, carilloner, carilloneur, carillonist, ringer, tintinnabulary, tintinnabulist
• (playing of bells): bell-ringing, tintinnabulation, tintinnabulism, tintinnation
• (bell-related): campanistic, campanologic, campanarian, tintinnabular, tintinnabular, tintinnabulary, tintinnabulatory, tintinnabulous
• (related to a peal of bells or bell tower): campanilian
• (bell-shaped): bell-shaped, campanal, campaniform, campaniliform, campanular, campanulate, campanulated, campanulous, tintinnabulate
• (containing bells): campaned
• (sounding like a small bell): jingling, tinkling, tintinnabulant, tintinnabulating, tintinnating

Verb

bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)

1. (transitive) To attach a bell to.

   Who will bell the cat?

2. (transitive) To shape so that it flares out like a bell.

   to bell a tube

3. (slang, transitive) To telephone.
4. (intransitive) To develop bells or corollas; to take the form of a bell; to blossom.

   Hops bell.

See also

• bell out

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English bellen, from Old English bellan (“to bellow; make a hollow noise; roar; bark; grunt”), from Proto-Germanic *bellan? (“to sound; roar; bark”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?el- (“to sound; roar; bark”). Cognate with Scots bell (“to shout; speak loudly”), Dutch bellen (“to bark”), German Low German bellen (“to ring”), German bellen (“to bark”), Swedish böla (“to low; bellow; roar”).

Verb

bell (third-person singular simple present bells, present participle belling, simple past and past participle belled)

1. (intransitive) To bellow or roar.
   • As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled / Once, twice and again!

   • 1872, Robert Browning, Fifine at the Fair:

     You acted part so well, went al?-fours upon earth / The live-long day, brayed, belled.

   • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber and Faber 2005, page 128:

     Then, incredibly, a rutting stag belled by the trunks.

2. (transitive) To utter in a loud manner; to thunder forth.
   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, Astrophel:

     Their leaders bell their bleating tunes In doleful sound.

Derived terms

• belling

Translations

Noun

bell (plural bells)

1. The bellow or bay of certain animals, such as a hound on the hunt or a stag in rut.

Translations

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan [Term?], from Latin bellus. Compare Occitan bèll, bèu, French beau, Spanish bello.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?be?/
• Rhymes: -e?
• Homophone: vell

Adjective

bell (feminine bella, masculine plural bells, feminine plural belles)

1. beautiful

Derived terms

• bellament
• bellesa
• belles arts
• embellir

Further reading

• “bell” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “bell” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “bell” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “bell” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

German

Verb

bell

1. singular imperative of bellen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of bellen

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (balla).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?ll/

Verb

bell (imperfect jbill, past participle miblul)

1. to dip (immerse something shortly or partly into a liquid)

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??/
• (South Wales, also) IPA^(key): /be??/

Adjective

bell

1. Soft mutation of pell.

Mutation