Word.ws English Dictionary

campanile

Syllables: cam·pa·ni·le/kæmpəˈniːleɪ/US/ˌkæmpəˈnili/

campanile noun: a bell tower (especially one that is freestanding), often associated with a church or other public building, especially in Italy.

campanile: a bell tower (especially one that is freestanding), often associated with a church or other public...
Image: Thermos, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

campanile (plural campaniles or campanili)

  1. A bell tower (especially one that is freestanding), often associated with a church or other public building, especially in Italy.
    • The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a campanile.
    • There was no doubt as to the direction, with the campanile of the duomo as a beacon. For a quarter of a mile the road is straight and narrow; then it broadens into an open space and Castel Franco appears.1914, E[dward] V[errall] Lucas, “Giorgione”, in A Wanderer in Venice, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. […], →OCLC, pages 294–295

Proper noun capitalized: Campanile

Campanile (plural Campaniles)

  1. A surname.

Forms of campanile

Noun
pluralcampaniles
pluralcampanili
Proper noun
pluralCampaniles

Origin of campanile

Borrowed from Italian campanile (“bell tower, belfry”), from campana (“bell”) + -ile (suffix forming nouns indicating locations that host animals or objects). Campana is derived from Late Latin and Medieval Latin campāna (“large bell used in late classical or medieval church towers or steeples; tower for such a bell, belfry, campanile”), and then either: * traditionally regarded to be from Latin Campāna (“region of Campania, Italy”) (because bells were supposedly introduced in Christian services in Nola, a diocese of Campania, by Saint Paulinus (c. 354 – 431), though the story has been discredited), from Campānus (“relating to the region of Campania, Italy, or its inhabitants, Campanian”), from campus (“field, plain”) (from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂em- (“to bend, curve”)) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives, which are sometimes used as nouns); or * from Ancient Greek καπάνη (kapánē, “felt helmet”) (apparently because of the similarity in shape). The plural form campanili is derived from Italian campanili.

Questions about campanile

What does campanile mean?
Campanile means a bell tower (especially one that is freestanding), often associated with a church or other public building, especially in Italy.
What part of speech is campanile?
Campanile can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce campanile?
Campanile is pronounced /kæmpəˈniːleɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of campanile?
The plural of campanile is campaniles.

Words near campanile in the dictionary

  1. campania
  2. Campanian
  3. Campanians
  4. campanias
  5. campaniform
  6. campanile
  7. campaniles
  8. campanili
  9. campanilid
  10. campanilids
  11. campaniliform

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: campanile (page history and authors); Campanile (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-campanile.wav.

Cite this entry: “campanile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/campanile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.