Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A ringing of a set of bells, especially a change or set of changes rung on bells.
  • noun A set of bells tuned to each other; a chime.
  • noun A loud burst of noise.
  • intransitive verb To sound in a peal; ring.
  • intransitive verb To cause to peal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To sound loudly; resound: as, the pealing organ.
  • To assail with noise.
  • To utter loudly and sonorously; cause to ring or sound; celebrate.
  • To stir or agitate.
  • noun A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon, shouts of a multitude, etc.
  • noun A set of bells tuned to one another; a chime or carillon; a ring.
  • noun A musical phrase or figure played on a set of bells, properly a scale or part of a scale played up or down, but also applied to any melodic figure; a change.
  • An obsolete variant of pile.
  • noun A name used in England for different species of the genus Salmo, as S. salar, the salmon, or S. cambricus, a trout found in England, Ireland, and Norway. The latter is also called sewin.
  • noun Appeal; plaint; accusation.
  • To appeal.
  • noun See peel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. A small salmon; a grilse; a sewin.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To appeal.
  • noun A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon, shouts, of a multitude, etc.
  • noun A set of bells tuned to each other according to the diatonic scale; also, the changes rung on a set of bells.
  • noun See under Ring.
  • transitive verb To utter or give forth loudly; to cause to give out loud sounds; to noise abroad.
  • transitive verb To assail with noise or loud sounds.
  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. To pour out.
  • intransitive verb To utter or give out loud sounds.
  • intransitive verb To resound; to echo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon, shouts, laughter, of a multitude, etc.
  • verb intransitive To sound with a peal or peals.
  • verb transitive To utter or sound loudly.
  • verb transitive To assail with noise.
  • verb UK, dialect To pour out.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a deep prolonged sound (as of thunder or large bells)
  • verb ring recurrently
  • verb sound loudly and sonorously

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English pele, a bell peal, especially as a summons to church, short for apel, appeal; see appeal.]

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