Campaniles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A freestanding bell tower, often part of a church or civic building, designed to house one or more bells
2. A structure that typically rises high above surrounding buildings, providing a distinctive architectural feature
3. A tower that serves the purpose of announcing time or call to worship through bell chimes

Etymology: The plural of "campanile" is "campaniles", and the word has the same ancestry as the singular. Italian "campanile" meant "bell tower, belfry", formed from "campana" ("bell") with the suffix "-ile", which marks a place that houses something. The Italian plural is "campanili", and English speakers often use the Italian form for the tower of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, the Campanile di San Marco. The root "campana" reaches back to Late Latin and Medieval Latin, where it named a large church bell. Its ultimate source is uncertain. One old theory links it to Campania, the region of southern Italy, through a story that Saint Paulinus introduced bells to Christian services in Nola. Modern scholarship has discredited that tale, so the regional link is best treated as a legend. A second possibility connects "campana" to the Greek "kapanē", a felt helmet, apparently because of a similarity in shape.

Synonyms: bell towers, steeples, clock towers, towers, minarets