bel
part of speech
noun (a bel, bels); name (Bel — a name)
meaning for a pupil
1) A unit for measuring how loud a sound is or comparing power levels; one bel is ten decibels. tree →
2) (a name) Bel, a short form of names like Isabel or Belinda. tree →
3) In old stories, Bel is the name of an ancient Babylonian god (Bible: «Bel and the Dragon»). tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons on sound, you nearly always meet the decibel (dB), which is one tenth of a bel; the bel itself is rarely used. It was named after Alexander Graham Bell, who worked on the telephone. In everyday life «Bel» is usually a nickname.
examples
- One bel equals ten decibels. tree →
- Sound levels are usually measured in decibels, not bels. tree →
- The bel was named after Alexander Graham Bell. tree →
- My friend Isabel likes to be called Bel. tree →
- A whisper is about two bels, or twenty decibels. tree →
- In the Bible story, Daniel showed that the idol Bel did not really eat food. tree →
note
Countable: a bel, bels; symbol B. Usually lower case as a unit, capital as a name. Homophone trap: «bel» sounds like «bell» (which rings). In maths: to change bels to decibels, multiply by 10 (3 bels = 30 dB). Each extra bel means ten times more sound power.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «bel» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.