bell jar


noun
  1. a bell-shaped glass jar or cover for protecting delicate instruments, bric-a-brac, or the like, or for containing gases or a vacuum in chemical experiments.

Origin of bell jar

1
First recorded in 1875–80
  • Also called bell glass.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use bell jar in a sentence

  • He painted the frames himself; and, being afraid of too much sunlight, he smeared over all the bell-glasses with chalk.

    Bouvard and Pcuchet | Gustave Flaubert
  • A little of this powder was placed on the leaves of five small sorbs, which were damped and placed under bell-glasses.

    Fungi: Their Nature and Uses | Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
  • Bell glasses for aquaria are to be obtained of any of the dealers in aquarian stock, and at most horticultural glass warehouses.

  • So much the worse if they fall on his bell-glasses and on his garden-frames!

    A Chambermaid's Diary | Octave Mirbeau
  • He claims damages and interest for the breaking of his bell-glasses and his frames, and for the devastation of the garden.

    A Chambermaid's Diary | Octave Mirbeau

British Dictionary definitions for bell jar

bell jar

noun
  1. a bell-shaped glass cover used to protect flower arrangements or fragile ornaments or to cover apparatus in experiments, esp to prevent gases escaping

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012