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knell

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The slow, solemn tolling of a bell, especially announcing a death or rung during a funeral; suggests mournful sound marking endings or impending doom.

Detailed Definition
“Knell” evokes mortality and finality—“death knell.” In elegiac poetry, it marks irreversible loss. The term’s nasal consonants mimic bell tone. Poets use it to signal doom, transition, or communal mourning, where sound bridges earthly and divine, reinforcing themes of fate, memory, and ritual in meditative and narrative traditions.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The knell of midnight tolled for the dead,” in a gothic lyric; In Gray’s “Elegy”: “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day”; “Each bell’s knell marked a soul’s release,” a devotional image; “The wedding knell? Nay, ’twas a funeral chime,” a tragic irony; “Hear the knell that calls us all”; The knell of hope rang in his ears.
Additional Notes
“Knell” is the death-knell’s mournful toll; in elegies or meditations on mortality, its sound universalizes grief, transforming individual loss into communal ritual through auditory symbolism.
Also Known As
toll death knell funeral bell
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