Word.ws English Dictionary

lose the bell

lose the bell verb: to be defeated in a contest.

Verb

lose the bell (third-person singular simple present loses the bell, present participle losing the bell, simple past and past participle lost the bell)

  1. (idiomatic, obsolete) To be defeated in a contest.
    • In single fight he lost the bell.1600, [Torquato Tasso], “(please specify |book=1 to 20)”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield...

Forms of lose the bell

third-person singular presentloses the bell
present participlelosing the bell
past participlelost the bell
pastlost the bell

Questions about lose the bell

What does lose the bell mean?
Lose the bell means to be defeated in a contest.
What part of speech is lose the bell?
Lose the bell is a verb.
What is the past tense of lose the bell?
The past tense of lose the bell is lost the bell.

Words near lose the bell in the dictionary

  1. lose patience
  2. lose sight of
  3. lose sleep
  4. lose steam
  5. lose the battle, but win the war
  6. lose the bell
  7. lose the bubble
  8. lose the dressing room
  9. lose the fang
  10. lose the number of one's mess
  11. lose the plot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lose the bell (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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