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sound as a bell
Idioms and Phrases
In excellent condition, as in Now that the brakes have been relined, the car is sound as a bell , or The surgery went well and now he's sound as a bell . This simile rests on the assumption that the bell in question is not cracked (which would make it useless). First recorded in 1565, it has survived numerous other similes ( sound as a top or roach or dollar ), probably owing to its pun on “sound.â€Example Sentences
"They're fools. You're as sound as a bell. You'll bury us all!"
And then there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as a bell, and bad right through.
"Divide, divide!" sank into reluctant silence as Audley Egerton rose to conclude the debate—the man of men to speak late at night, and to impatient benches: a man who would be heard; whom a Bedlam broke loose would not have roared down; with a voice clear and sound as a bell, and a form as firmly set on the ground as a church-tower.
"I am as sound as a bell," he vowed.
Toll, tÅl, v.i. to sound, as a large bell, esp. with a measured sound, as a funeral bell.—v.t. to cause to sound, as a bell: to strike, or signal by striking.—n. the sound of a bell when tolling.—n.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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