a. and formative. Forms: 4–5 bele, 7 bell. [a. F. bel, belle ‘beautiful, fair, fine’:—L. bell-um, -am. Naturalized in ME.; but after 1600 consciously French.]
† A. adj. Fair, fine, beautiful. Obs.
c. 1314. Guy Warw., 68. Bele ost, Y bidde say thou me What may al this erning be.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 1796. Bele Isawde Ne coude hem noght of loue werne.
c. 1475. Babees Bk. (1868), 3. A Bele Babees, herkne now to my lore!
[1605. Chapman, All Fooles, Plays (1873), I. 136. With a Bell regard aduant mine eye.]
1678. Mrs. Behn, Pat. Fancy, II. 253. If you are not the most *Bell Person I ever saw [? A pun on the name Isabella].
B. Used as a formative prefix in belfader, belsire, beldame, belmoder, grandfather, grandmother. The explanation of this use, which seems to be entirely English and unknown to French, is not clear; but it answers to the Eng. use of good in goodsire (gudscher, gutcher), gooddame (gudame), ‘godson or gosson filiolus,’ and ‘goddowter filiola,’ in Promp. Parv., which is again partly paralleled by the mod.F. bon-papa, bonne-maman, grandpapa, grandmamma. The French and English use of grand, in grandpère grandfather, grandsire, grand’mère grandmother, grandame, is capable of more obvious explanation; while the tendency to allow analogy to prevail over sense appears in the Eng. grandson as compared with F. petit-fils. Still further analogies in the parallel use of beau, belle, and good (though to express a different relationship) are presented by the F. beau-père father-in-law, belle-mère mother-in-law, beau-frère brother-in-law, etc., for which the north. Eng. and Sc. forms are good-father, good-mother, good-brother, good-sister, etc.
