campanile

noun

cam·​pa·​ni·​le ˌkam-pə-ˈnē-lē 

ˌkäm-,

-(ˌ)lā,

especially of US structures also

ˌkam-pə-ˈnēl 

plural campaniles or campanili ˌkam-pə-ˈnē-lē 

ˌkäm-,

-(ˌ)lā

: a usually freestanding bell tower

Illustration of campanile

Examples of campanile in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Singer Building housed a sewing-machine company, but its slender campanile might have served to ring tocsins or watch for approaching armies. —Justin Davidson, Curbed, 3 Aug. 2023

Berkeley also appears on track to approve two more towers of comparable size and another that, at 28 stories, will be taller than the university’s famous campanile, which, at 307 feet, has defined the city’s skyline for more than a century. —Daniel Duane, New York Times, 30 May 2023

To decorate this campanile, Crow has reportedly ordered sculptures made of his own heroes: Aristotle, free-market economist Milton Friedman and the Roman goddess Fortuna. —Christopher Helman, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2023

That campanile? —Julia Buckley, CNN, 20 Apr. 2021

Even now, they are marked architecturally by distinctive campanile, or bell-towers, as well as by the sort of sinuously sloping windows, many garlanded by vines, seen in some of Muggia’s private houses. —Tara Isbabella Burton, WSJ, 22 Sep. 2021

Calling to you from sea and land alike, the belltower of pretty Piran is a dead ringer for the famous campanile of St Mark's Square. —Julia Buckley, CNN, 20 Apr. 2021

Defensive backs meet with a view of the campanile, Cal’s clock tower. —John Branch, New York Times, 14 Oct. 2020

The city’s imperial gate was built in 1489—a bit of medieval flair that’s bolstered by the fourteenth-century campanile and the fifteenth-century baptistry. —Kenneth R. Rosen, The New Yorker, 27 Feb. 2020

Word History

Etymology

Italian, from campana bell, from Late Latin

First Known Use

1605, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for campanile

• chrysotile
• domicil
• domicile
• mercantile
• neuropil
• nonpareil
• percentile
• peristyle
• reconcile
• thermopile
• aisle
• bile

Kids Definition

campanile

noun

cam·​pa·​ni·​le ˌkam-pə-ˈnē-lē  ˌkäm- 

-(ˌ)lā,

 especially of U.S. structures also  ˌkam-pə-ˈnē(ə)l

plural campaniles or campanili

: a bell tower

especially : one built separate from another building