pancake belln.
/ˈpankeɪk ˌbɛl/, /ˈpaŋkeɪk ˌbɛl/, U.S. /ˈpænˌkeɪk ˌbɛl/ Chiefly historical.
A bell rung on Shrove Tuesday at or about 11 a.m., popularly associated with the making of pancakes.It is generally held that the bell was rung originally to call people to confession. In some places it was taken as the signal for the cessation of work and the beginning of a holiday lasting the rest of the day.
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society > leisure > social event > festive occasion > specific festivities > [noun] > pre-Lent or Shrove-tide festivities > bell
pancake bell1600
1600 T. Dekker Shomakers Holiday sig. H4v Vpon euery Shroue tuesday, at the sound of the pancake bell: my fine dapper Assyrian lads, shall clap vp their shop windows, and away.
1640–1 in H. J. F. Swayne Churchwardens' Accts. Sarum (1896) 212 Making a frame for the Pancake bell.
1690 W. Eyre Vindic. Let. out of North The apprentices, journeymen, and other servants of the town, had the liberty to go into the Cathedral and ring the Pancake-bell (as we call it in the country) on Shrove Tuesday.
1790 Gentleman's Mag. June 495/2 The custom of ringing a great bell in our ancient parish churches..yet remains, and obtains in and about London the name of Pancake-bell.
1867 J. Harland & T. T. Wilkinson Lancs. Folk-lore 44 The bell rung on Shrove-Tuesday to call Christians to be shriven, was called the ‘Pancake Bell’, and some have regarded it merely as a signal to people to fry their pan-cakes.
1896 Leeds Mercury Weekly Suppl. 29 Feb. (E.D.D.) Richmond and Darlington have also their pancake bells, also Northallerton, at which place the same bell is used as for the curfew. The pancake bell called the people to be shriven before Lent.
1977 Cleethorpes News 6 May 19/5 Best known among the bells..is the next oldest, the sanctus bell, called ‘the Pancake bell’. It used to ring..on Shrove Tuesdays to tell the labourers in the fields that it was time to come home for their dinner of pancakes.
1989 J. Smith Fairs, Feasts & Frolics (BNC) 29 (heading) The Mayor of Scarborough rings the Pancake Bell at the Rotunda Museum.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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