noun
definition
The sound of a bell knelling; a toll (particularly one signalling a death).
definition
A sign of the end or demise of something or someone.
verb
definition
To ring a bell slowly, especially for a funeral; to toll.
definition
To signal or proclaim something (especially a death) by ringing a bell.
definition
To summon by, or as if by, ringing a bell.
Examples of knell in a Sentence
Every second the Prussians rung the knell of death with their artillery.
The security breach and the violence in Parliament Square overshadowed the vote itself which anti-hunting campaigners hope will signal the death knell of foxhunting.
Changes in finance could be quietly tolling the death knell for property companies anyway, he believes.
Toll on, thou passing bell; Ring out my doleful knell; Let thy sound my death tell.
Is Norwich Union's closure of Hill House Hammond the death knell of the high street broker?
In this unpredictable, regional evolution can be heard the death knell for Mr Bush's " Greater Middle East Initiative.
This was the final death knell for the tramways, the last tram running at 4.30pm on 15 February 1930.
The future The strike has been neither the death knell, nor the ringing affirmation of class politics that various pundits have claimed.
Were there no ears on which the rude clamor of that noisy mirth struck as a funeral knell?
Like any doomsday prophesy, the death knell was premature, but in 1937 John Cage reiterated the warning.
I hope that this latest revelation may finally sound the death knell for our wasteful trips to Strasbourg.
They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me... Why wert thou so dear?
The knell of Dutch supremacy was sounded by Clive, when in 1758 he attacked the Dutch at Chinsura both by land and water, and forced them to an ignominious capitulation.
The violent end to the Jacobite rising of 1745 also sounded the death knell of Highland society.
Incidentally, those who predicted the smoking ban would spell the death knell of the Irish pub couldn't have been more wrong.
He had no food for himself but gathered an armful of straw for the horse and knell down to pray.
Slowly the Dutch lost ground and the outbreak of war with England sounded the knell of their dominion in Brazil.
Kurt Cobain's suicide put an abrupt end to Nirvana, a band that almost single-handedly sounded the death knell of the arena rock era.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, followed by the establishment of direct steam communication between Spain and the Philippines, sounded the death knell of the peaceful outside the city, but were unsuccessful.