Words / C2

NEL/nel/

A knell is a funeral bell; the set phrase is a death knell for something ending: the death knell of the night lab. Bell is everyday; omen and harbinger (already in the dictionary) are cousins of the figurative sense. Knell is not the same as knoll (a small hill). Do not write knell for a cheerful doorbell.

Meaning

The sound of a bell rung for a death; figuratively, a sign that something is finished (a death knell).

Examples

• “The second failed inspection was the death knell of the night lab.”
• “The second failed inspection was the death knell of the unstaffed night lab.”
• “A knoll is a hill; a knell is a bell for the dead, or the metaphor of an ending.”

Good to know

A funeral bell; usually death knell (an ending sign). Mix-up: knoll (hill). Everyday: bell. Cousin: omen. Not a doorbell.

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