Meaning & use
Bel
Last updated
A unit used to express the ratio of two levels of power or intensity, especially of sound, now mostly used in its subdivision, the decibel.
See it in a sentence
Sound engineers rarely use the bel directly, preferring its smaller unit, the decibel.
A change of one bel represents a tenfold increase in sound intensity.
A note on using this word
Named after Alexander Graham Bell; the decibel (one-tenth of a bel) is far more commonly used in practice.
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