belfry: [13] Etymologically, belfry has nothing to do with bells; it was a chance similarity between the two words that led to belfry being used from the 15th century onwards for ‘bell-tower’. The original English form was berfrey, and it meant ‘movable seige-tower’. It came from Old French berfrei, which in turn was borrowed from a hypothetical Frankish *bergfrith, a compound whose two elements mean respectively ‘protect’ (English gets bargain, borough, borrow, and bury from the same root) and ‘peace, shelter’ (hence German friede ‘peace’); the underlying sense of the word is thus the rather tautological ‘protective shelter’.
A tendency to break down the symmetry between the two rs in the word led in the 15th century to the formation of belfrey in both English and French (l is phonetically close to r), and at around the same time we find the first reference to it meaning ‘bell-tower’, in Promptorium parvulorum 1440, an early English-Latin dictionary: ‘Bellfray, campanarium’. => affray, bargain, borrow, borough, bury, neighbour
belfry (n.)
c. 1400, "wooden siege tower on wheels" (late 13c. in Anglo-Latin with a sense "bell tower"), from Old North French berfroi "movable siege tower" (Modern French beffroi), from Middle High German bercfrit "protecting shelter," from Proto-Germanic compound *berg-frithu, literally "high place of security," or that which watches over peace." From bergen "to protect" (see bury) or *bergaz "mountain, high place" (see barrow (n.2)) + *frithu- "peace; personal security" (see affray). It came to be used for chime towers (mid-15c.), which at first often were detached from church buildings (as the Campanile on Plaza San Marco in Venice). Spelling altered by dissimilation or by association with bell (n.).
双语例句
1. The poor man must have bats in the belfry -- he wears such peculiar clothes.
这个可怜的人准有点疯 -- 他穿这么怪的衣服.
来自辞典例句
2. Belfry: bell tower , either freestanding or attached to another structure.
钟楼: 独立的或附在另一建筑上的钟楼.
来自互联网
3. There also had been hundreds of in my belfry and attic.
在我的钟楼和阁楼也有好几百只.
来自互联网
4. Everybody said that the old man had bats in his belfry.
