NINE BELLS nine bells

It sounds very nautical, but there’s actually no such thing. Ship’s watches were marked by a system of eight bells. There was no ninth bell. I’ve heard stories that the term “nine bells” meant “do not wake me.”

In English churches, however, there was once a specific nine-bell ring. The Nine Tailors meant that a man in the village had died.

Nine bells. Don’t try and wake me, I’m already dead.