'Decibel' means 'one-tenth of a Bell' — named after Alexander Graham Bell by his own company.
Definition
A unit used to measure the intensity of a sound or the power level of an electrical signal, equal to one tenth of a bel.
The Full Story
Latin + English (personal name)1928well-attested
A technical coinage of 1928 by BellTelephone Laboratories, combining Latin 'deci-' (one tenth, from 'decimus,' tenth, from 'decem,' ten) with 'bel,' a unit of sound intensity named in honour of Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), the Scottish-American inventor of the telephone. The bel was defined as the base-10 logarithm of the ratio of two acoustic power levels, but it proved too large for practical use — a normal conversation spans only a few bels. The decibel (one-tenth of a bel) became the standard measurement unit for
Did you know?
The decibel scale is logarithmic, not linear: a sound at 20 dB is not twice as loud as 10 dB but ten times more powerful. This means a 120 dB rockconcert is not 12 times louder than a 10 dB whisper — it is one trillion times more powerful.
vessel), from Proto-Germanic *bellō (that which sounds or rings), from PIE *bʰel- (to sound, to roar, to cry out loudly). The decibel thus joins the ancient PIE decimal numeral system with the name of a 19th-century inventor. Key roots: deci- (Latin: "one tenth (from decem, ten)"), Bell (English: "surname of Alexander Graham Bell").