Bellow or below?
bellow is a noun meaning “The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise”; below is a preposition meaning “Lower in spatial position than”. Use bellow as a noun and below as a preposition. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) below is about 182 times as common as bellow.
What is the difference between bellow and below?
| bellow | below | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | preposition, adverb |
| Meaning | The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise To make a loud, deep, hollow noise like the roar of an angry bull To shout in a deep voice | Lower in spatial position than Lower than in value, price, rank, concentration, etc In or to a lower place |
| Example | none recorded | The treasure is buried two meters below the surface |
| Forms | bellows | none |
| Pronunciation | /ˈbɛloʊ/ /ˈbɛləʊ/ | /bɪˈləʊ/ /bɪˈlaː/ /bɪˈloʊ/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 112 times per million words |
Sources: bellow and below in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of bellow and below
bellow
- 1
The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise
- 2
To make a loud, deep, hollow noise like the roar of an angry bull
- 3
To shout in a deep voice
below
- 1
Lower in spatial position than
The treasure is buried two meters below the surface
- 2
In or to a lower place
The town is situated on a hillside, with a river running below
- 3
Lower than in value, price, rank, concentration, etc
The temperature is below zero
- 4
On or to a lower storey
She lives below, on the ground floor
- 5
Downstream of
The River Thames is tidal below Teddington Lock
- 6
On or to a lower deck, especially as relative to the main deck
The captain went below to inspect the engine
- 7
South of
Sudan is below Egypt
- 8
Later in the same text
This point is explained below
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, bellow or below?
bellow appears about once in every 2 million words; below 112 times per million words.
bellow about once in every 2 million wordsbelow 112 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search bellow vs below?
“bellow vs below” is searched about 2,400 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“below vs bellow”, “bellow or below”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.