belfry [ME] Although you will find bells (as well as *bats) in a belfry, the Old English word bell is not related to belfry. A belfry was originally a movable wooden tower used in the Middle Ages by armies besieging a fortification. The word originally had an ‘r’ not an ‘l’ in the middle, and came from Old French berfrei. The first part probably meant ‘to protect’ and the second ‘peace, protection’. The change to ‘l’ in the 15th century is probably through association with ‘bell’. The first belfry associated with a church was a separate bell tower, which would have had similarities to a siege tower: the word began to be used for a room or storey where the bells were hung in the middle of the 16th century. Bell [OE] is a Germanic word, of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Old English bellen ‘to bellow’.