''belfry'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''belfry'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260919121947-00-⌔

belfry - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

belfry (plural belfries)

• (architecture) A tower or steeple typically containing bells, especially as part of a church.
  • ✤ “You know, this house does have a belfry filled with local bats. Maybe Laszlo went up there.” “Oh, so like my darling perverted husband, to sniff out the local bordello immediately upon arrival. [chuckles] Could you take me to the belfry?”¹
• (architecture) A part of a large tower or steeple, specifically for containing bells.
  • ✤ From the belfries far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance.²
• (dialectal) A shed.
• (obsolete) A movable tower used in sieges.
• (obsolete) An alarm-tower; a watchtower possibly containing an alarm-bell.

Etymology

From Middle English belfry, bellfray, belfray, berfrey, barfray, from Old French belfroi, berfroi, berfrey, from Late Latin berfrēdus, from Frankish ﹡bergafriþu, from Proto-Germanic ﹡bergafriþuz, equivalent to barrow +‎ frith. English forms containing bel- as opposed to ber- were preferred due to false association with English bell. Cognate with Middle High German bërcvrit, bërvrit (“defensive tower”) (modern German Bergfried),³⁴⁵ Middle Dutch bergfrede, bergfert. Doublet of bergfried.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈbɛlfɹi/, enPR: bĕlʹfrē
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɛlfɹi

Printed 2026-09-19.

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Footnotes

1. 2023 August 31, William Meny & Paul Simms, “A Weekend at Morrigan Manor” (9:33 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows ‎${}^{[1]}$, season 5, episode 9, spoken by The Guide (Kristen Schaal): ↩

2. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[The Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC: ↩

3. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “belfry”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

4. “belfry”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. ↩

5. Alternative spelling and languages with loanwords from the Middle High German word, in Benecke’s Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch ↩

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