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English
Etymology
From sheep + bell.
Pronunciation
Noun
sheep-bell (countable and uncountable, plural sheep-bells)
- A bell attached to a collar worn by sheep.
1865, Lewis Carroll, chapter 12, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—
1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Across the Goulet”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes:The narrow street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall to wall—black sheep and white, bleating with one accord like the birds in spring, and each one accompanying himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made a pathetic concert, all in treble.
1954, Saul Bellow, “The Gonzaga Manuscripts”, in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, Penguin, published 1984, page 135:It got him, all of it—the ancient mountain slopes worn as if by the struggles of Jacob and the angel, the spires, the dry glistening of the atmosphere, the hermit places in green hideaways, the sheep-bells' clunk, the cistern water dropping, while beams came as straight as harp wires from the sun.