Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Knell

Knell, n. [OE. knel, cnul, AS. cnyll, fr. cnyllan to sound a bell; cf. D. & G. knallen to clap, crack, G. & Sw. knall a clap, crack, loud sound, Dan. knalde to clap, crack. Cf. Knoll, n. & v.] The stroke of a bell tolled at a funeral or at the death of a person; a death signal; a passing bell; hence, figuratively, a warning of, or a sound indicating, the passing away of anything.

The dead man's knell Is there scarce asked for who. Shak.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. Gray.

Knell, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Knelled; p. pr. & vb. n. Knelling.] [OE. knellen, knillen, As. cnyllan. See Knell, n.] To sound as a knell; especially, to toll at a death or funeral; hence, to sound as a warning or evil omen.

Not worth a blessing nor a bell to knell for thee. Beau. & Fl.

Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word, "alone". Ld. Lytton.

Knell, v. t. To summon, as by a knell.

Each matin bell, the baron saith, Knells us back to a world of death. Coleridge.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.