Clock = Klok = Bell

[Frank King]

Dear All,

I apologise if this is an improper use of
the bell historians' list...

I was in conversation with an unusually
well-educated clock engineer last week
and we were discussing the origin of
the word "clock".

This is widely accepted as coming from
one or more imported words that all mean
bell.

Although I will happily accept that as
an explanation, it prompts more questions
than it answers.

In consequence, I have written some notes
(based mostly on entries in the OED) and I
append these after my signature.

These notes are inchoate and unscholarly
but there just might be some readers of
this list who can point me at other
sources that give more explanation than
is provided in my notes.

Frank King
Cambridge.


          THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD CLOCK AND ALLIED WORDS

The origin of the English word clock, in the sense of an instrument
for the measurement of time, is something of a mystery.  The accepted
view, that it comes from a word meaning bell, leaves several questions
unanswered.

The etymology given in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) runs to
many lines of scholarly text but comes to no firm conclusion.  These
notes summarise what the OED has to say.


FALSE START

There is a single reference to the word cluge or cluccge in the year
890 but, the OED asserts, this "has no historical connexion with the
extant word".


CLOCK MEANING BELL

The generally accepted derivation of the word clock is that it comes
from the old Middle English word clok or clocke and there is a
well-established relationship with Dutch, German and French words such
as klok, Glocke and cloche.  In all cases, the word means bell.

Early mechanical clocks had no dials and hands, and indicated the hours
by striking a bell.

With this in mind, a simple explanation for the origin of the word
clock is suggested by the term "o'clock" as in four o'clock or four
strikes on a bell.


DIFFICULTIES WITH THIS EXPLANATION

This explanation may indeed be correct but there are difficulties:

  1.  The French and Germans don't use their words
      for bell to mean clock.  They use the words
      horloge and Uhr which relate to the Greek and
      Latin words for hour.

  2.  Even if we did choose to use a word meaning bell
      to describe an instrument for telling the time
      why should we import a foreign word when we had
      a perfectly good word, bell, of our own?


THE WORD BELL - AND SOME DATES

The OED suggests that the word bell is related to the Old English verb
bellan which means to make a loud noise, as in bellow today.  This use
dates from 1000 and the noun bell dates from 1200.

The first use of the English word clock to mean an instrument for
indicating the time is 1371.  By this date the word bell was in
every-day use.  Why didn't we say 4 o'bell?  Why use a German or
French word for bell which neither the Germans nor the French
themselves used for these new instruments?  Indeed, no other
language uses a word meaning bell to describe what we call clocks.


SUMMARY

Such evidence as there is, indicates that the word clock, in the sense
of an instrument for the measurement of time, does indeed come from
imported words for bell but quite how and why is not clear.

Even the origin of the word clock meaning bell is unclear.  The
OED says:

  Wherever it actually arose, it was probably echoic, imitating
  the rattling made by the early handbells of sheet-iron and
  quadrilateral shape, rather than the ringing of the cast
  circular bell of later date.  


THE WORD DIAL - MORE DATES

Eventually, clocks incorporated dials and the word dial was simply a
re-use of the word that described what we now know as a sundial.  A
little more explanation is required...

Before mechanical clocks were invented, the principal way to tell the
time was to use a sundial but the English word sundial appeared
surprisingly late.

The OED asserts that the first known use of the word sundial was in
1599, long after mechanical clocks had been invented.  Before then,
the word dial was used, unqualified by the prefix sun.  Again quoting
the OED, this word is presumably a derivative of the Latin dies, a
day.  The shadow on a sundial goes round once per day.

Intriguingly, the word dial also appeared surprisingly late, even
in the sense of sundial.  The OED gives 1430 as its first reference.
This is some while after mechanical clocks appeared and many, many
centuries after dials (as sundials) were in common use.

There is no direct equivalent of dial (coming from dies) outside English.
The French word is cadran, the German word is Uhr (really from the Greek
and Latin hora) and the Italian word is disco or quadrante.


THE WORDS DAY AND HOUR

For completeness, the origin of the word day is worth noting.  This
has Teutonic origins, as in the Low German Dag or Modern German Tag.
The OED gives the first use of the word day as 1000 and OED insists
that the word has nothing to do with the Latin dies.

Likewise, the origin of the word hour is also of note.  This clearly
does come from the Greek and Latin, hora, and the modern French,
German and Italian words are obviously connected: heure, Uhr and
ora.  The OED gives the first use of the English word hour as 1250.

Frank H. King
18 December 2009