Bell-ringing. [perh. connected with BOB sb.4] ‘A term used by change-ringers to denote certain changes in the working of the methods by which long peals of changes are produced.’ Treble bob is a method in which the bells, and more especially the ‘Treble,’ have a dodging course. A bob minor is rung upon 6 bells, a bob triple upon 7, a bob major upon 8, a bob royal upon 10, a bob maximus upon 12 (Grove, Dict. Music, s.v. Change.)
1671. Tintinnalogia, Pref. Verses (title), Upon the Presentation of Grandsire Bob To the Colledge-yovths, By the Author of that Peal. Ibid., 102.
1677. F. S[tedman], Campanologia, 82. Upon six bells there are also single and double Courses, viz. twelve changes in every single Course, as in Grandsire Bob, etc. and twenty four changes in every double Course, as in Colledg Bob, etc.
1702. Campanologia Impr., 26. The word Extream we must confess is the most proper Signification, in regard to the Change, but there is now and for some time has been a word call’d Bob, instead of Extream, upon what account the word was chang’d, we know not.
1807. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 197. A great hand at ringing bob-majors.
1822. Byron, Juan, VII. lxxxv. The next shall ring a peal to shake all people, Like a bob-major from a village steeple.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. VI. iii. 336. A distracted empty-sounding world; of bob-minors and bob-majors, of triumph and terror.
1872. Ellacombe, Bells of Ch., iii. 43. Perhaps the most remarkable is one of 12,000 Treble bob royal which was rung in 1784.
Hence Bob-majoring. nonce-wd.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1873), V. 139. Huge huzzahing, herald-trumpeting, bob-majoring bursts forth from all Prussian towns.
