Bell

• IPA^(key): /bɛl/

Bell

1. A Scottish and northern English surname for a bell ringer, bellmaker, or from someone who lived "at the Bell (inn)"
2. The Bell telephone company (after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.)
3. A male given name occasionally transferred from the surname.
4. A female given name, a variant of Belle; mostly used as a middle name in the 19th century.
   • 1857 Charles Dickens, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, Chapter 1:

     […] I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of—I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life—she had got the plaything name of Belltott. In short, she had no other name on the island.

Bell (plural Bells)

1. (US, Canada) a telephone utility; a Baby Bell.