Forms: α. sing. 1 -bælʓ, belʓ, beliʓ, bylʓ, byliʓ, 3 beli, 3–4 bely, ? buly; pl. 3–4 belies, bulies, 5 belyes, belise, belice, 6 bales, bellies, bellyis. β. sing. 4 belw, belu, below, 5–6 bel(l)owe; pl. 4 belwes, bellows, 5 belwis, -wys, -owys, 6 bellowse, 5–7 bellowes, 7– bellows, (double pl. 7 bellowses, still dial.). [Now used only in plural: the sing. was still in use in 15th c., and still later in compounds. The OE. name for ‘bellows’ was blǽst-bęl(i)ʓ, blást-bęl(i)ʓ ‘blast-bag, blowing-bag’ (= ON. blástr-belgr, Sw. blåsbälg, Da. blæsebælg, mod.G. blasebalg); but already in the 11th c. the simple bęlʓ, bylʓ, byliʓ ‘bag’ occurs in this sense in the glossaries. (So also mod.Sw. bälg, and Da. bælger pl. = ‘bellows.’) Thence the ME. beli, bely, buly (ü), really the same word as BELLY, under which see the remoter etymology. In the sense ‘bellows,’ bely was still used in the sing. by Chaucer, but after 1400 we find this only with the sense ‘belly,’ though the pl. belies, bellies retained the sense ‘bellows’ late in the 16th c. in literature, and bellis, bellice, is still common in the dialects. But in Wyclif we find another form, belu, belw, in 15th c. bellowe (apparently of northern or north. midl. origin), of which the plur. belwes, belowes, bellows became established in 16th c. as the literary form, bellies being thenceforth used only as the plur. of ‘belly’ in the modern sense. In later times bellows has often been construed as a sing., ‘a bellows,’ and occasionally has even received a second plural inflexion, bellowses, which is common in the dialects; cf. ‘a gallows,’ and obs. or dial. pl. gallowses.
The evidence at present available does not settle whether belu, belw, came down from a non-palatalized form of OE. bęlʓ, or from the plural inflexions bęlʓa, bęlʓum, while beli represented the sing. forms bęliʓ, bęlʓe (cf. ME. sing. dai, dei, pl. dawes:—OE. dæʓ, daʓas); or, finally, whether it was a northern Eng. adoption of ON. belgr: for each of these hypotheses something may be said. Bellows is app. not cognate with L. follis: see BALL sb.1 and BELLY.]
1. An instrument or machine constructed to furnish a strong blast of air. In its simplest form, it consists essentially of a combination of bag and box, formed of an upper and lower board joined by flexible leather sides, enclosing a cavity capable of expansion and contraction, and furnished with a valve opening inwards, through which air enters and fills the expanded cavity, and with a tube or nozzle, through which the air is forced out in a stream when the machine is compressed. It has many modifications of form and structure according to its purpose; and the name is sometimes applied to the ‘blower’ of a blast-furnace.
a. An instrument or machine of this kind used to blow a fire; it may be portable, as the common hand-bellows, or fixed, as a smith’s bellows. Often, with reference to the two halves or handles, called a pair of bellows, rarely, as sing., a bellows.
α. a. 800. Epinal & Erf. Gl. (Sweet, O. E. T., 64), Follis, blestbælʓ, Corpus Gl., blæsbælʓ.
a. 1000. in Wülcker, Voc., 241. Folliginis, belʓum; follis, blædbylʓum. Ibid., 272. Follis, blæstbelʓ. Ibid. (a. 1100), 336. Follis, byliʓ. Ibid., 517. Follibus, bylʓum.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 296. Þe deouel … mucheleð his beli bles. Ibid., 284. No fur in his smiððe—ne belies.
a. 1300. W. de Biblesw., in Wright, Voc., 171. Le foufou, the bely.
c. 1300. St. Brandan, 467. Tho hurden hi of bulies gret blowinge there.
c. 1400. Leg. Rood (1871), 85. Scho blew þe belise ferly fast.
a. 1440. Isumbras, 410. A smethymane … blewe thaire belyes bloo.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 9 b. The whele gothe by drifte of water to blowe the bales.
a. 1600. Purgatory, in Ever-Green (1761), II. 246. Thocht thay … blaw Ay quhill thair Bellyis ryve.
β. 1388. Wyclif, Jer. vi. 29. The belu [v.r. belw, bely] failide, leed is waastid in the fier.
1398. Test. Ebor. (1836), I. 250. Unum par de melioribus bellows.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 30. Belowe [ed. Pynson 1499, belows], follis.
1463. Bury Wills (1850), 23. A peyre tongys, and a peyre belwys.
1483. Cath. Angl., 27. A Bellowe [v.r. belowys or belice], follis.
a. 1568. Coverdale, Hope Faithf., xxvii. 189. The Lords breath, which is … as a belowes.
1570. Levins, Manip., 180. A Belowe, follis.
1611. Bible, Jer. vi. 29. The bellowes are burnt, the lead is consumed of the fire.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., x. 74. The blasts of a pair of Bellows.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, XVIII. 427. Twenty Bellowses in all he had.
1693. Dryden, Persius’ Sat., V. 60 (J.).
| Thou neither, like a Bellows, swell’st thy Face, | |
| As if thou wert to blow the burning Mass | |
| Of melting Ore. |
1715. Desaguliers, Fires Impr., 137. The Bellows … blows so much the stronger. Ibid., 139. A pair of Bellows that blow constantly.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XVIII. 585. Full twenty bellows working all at once.
1796. Southey, Lett. Spain & Port. (1799), 199. The people make use of a hollow cane instead of a bellows.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 26. Taking the bellows up the fire to blow.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, II. XVIII. 200. From twenty bellows came Their breath into the furnaces.
b. A similar contrivance for supplying air to a wind-instrument, as an organ, harmonium or concertina. (In large organs the bellows are usually blown by hydraulic power.)
1542. Rec. St. Michaels, Stortf. (1882), 43. For ij schepekynnes to amend wt all the bellis for the orgons, vijd.
1566. Church-w. Acc. St. Dunstan’s, Canterb. One payer of orgens lackeng iij pypes, also thear lacketh the pesys of led belongen to the belowes.
1697. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 156. Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, While organs yet were mute.
1795. Mason, Ch. Music, I. 37. Twelve pair of Bellows, rang’d in stated row, Are joined above, and fourteen more below.
1855. Hopkins & Rimbault, Organ, II. (1877), 9. There are two kinds of bellows to be met with in church organs … diagonal and horizontal bellows.
2. fig. Applied to that which blows up or fans the fire of passion, discord, etc.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Pers. T., ¶ 277. The deueles bely … bloweth in man þe fire of flesshly concupiscence.
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 427. By mediation of the Frenche King, a very Bellowse of this fire.
1600. Cherrie & Slae, in Ever-Green (1761), II. 110. By Luve his Bellies blawin.
1608. Shaks., Per., I. ii. 39 (1878). Flattery is the bellows blows up sin.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., I. iv. (1675), 24. As Bellows to blow or rekindle Devotion.
1820. Keats, Hyperion, II. 176. My voice is not a bellows unto ire.
3. fig. Applied to the lungs.
1615. Latham, Falconry (1633), 115. The lungs doe draw a breath … When these bellowes doe decay, then health from both doth fade away.
1631. Donne, Elegy, in Farr’s S. P. (1848), 21. We, to live, our bellows wear, and breath.
1711. Vind. Sacheverell, 91. He … would be insufferably noisy in Company, if his Bellows would hold.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., iv. 59. The lungs are, as it were, the bellows of the organ. [Of a broken-winded horse, stablemen say, ‘He has bellows to mend.’]
4. The expansible portion of a photographer’s camera.
1884. Jrnl. Phot. Alman., 115. Attached to BB [the wooden frame of the camera] is a bellows stretching back some six inches when open. Ibid., 116. The back bellows acts as a focussing-cloth.
5. Hydrostatic Bellows: see HYDROSTATIC.
6. Comb. chiefly attrib., as bellows action, -blast, -board, -pedal, -sound, -spring; also bellows-blower, the person who works or blows the bellows; hence, fig. a fanner, inciter of strife, etc.; also, an unskilled assistant whose part is merely mechanical like that of the blower of an organ; bellows-engine, an engine that works bellows; bellows-fever (see quot.); bellows-fish (so called from its general shape: see quot.); bellows-like a., resembling or acting like bellows; bellows-maker; bellows-mender; bellows-nail, a very small nail used in the construction of bellows; bellows press, a small hand printing-press formerly used; bellows-tail (see quot.); bellows-treader, one who works bellows with his feet by treadles.
1881. C. Edwards, Organs, 44. The *bellows action … resembles an ordinary pump action.
1674. Petty, Disc. bef. R. Soc., 104. The Strength of such *Bellows-blast.
1658. Lennard, trans. Charron’s Wisd., II. iii. § 16 (1670), 250. The Player or Organist may in every point exercise his Art, without the *bellows-blower.
1849[?]. Southey, Comm.-pl. Bk., II. 191. The trumpeters and drummers and *bellows-blowers of rebellion were conformable Episcopalians.
1865. Times, 2 Feb. The prelates play the new organ; the lay members are the mere *bellows-blowers.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, I. 162. The length and leverage … of the *bellows boards.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. viii. Its *bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still seest.
1852. Seidel, Organ, 133. *Bellows fever, that is, the trembling or faultering of the wards, is a great defect.
1684. Phil. Trans., XXIX. 479. The Scolopax or Trombetta, call’d by our Seamen the *Bellows or Trumpet-Fish.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 422/1. Centriscus Scolopax … known in Cornwall by the name of the bellows-fish.
1715. Desaguliers, Fires Impr., 140. They … may be had at several *Bellows-makers.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., IV. i. 210. Flute the *bellowes-mender.
1765. Goldsm., Ess., i. Mr. Bellows-mender hoped Mr. Curry-comb-maker had not caught cold.
1730. Savery, in Phil. Trans., XXXVI. 296. Nails of several Sizes, from the smallest Sort of *Bellows-Nails to the largest Sort of Rafter-Nails.
1846. Print. Appar. Amateurs, 5. A small and old instrument known amongst printers as the *Bellows Press.
1834. Forbes, Dis. Chest, 517. Most commonly the *bellows sound is … confined within the limits of the artery or ventricle.
1852. Seidel, Organ, 39. This ledge is called the *bellows-spring. Ibid., 38. The upper-board has on its end … a prolongation … called the *bellows tail.
1876. Hiles, Catech. Organ, viii. (1878), 53. In many Continental Organs the inflation of the bellows is by treadles instead of handles, and hence the name *‘bellows-treader.’
