bezel

Borrowed from French bisel, a dialectal variant of biseau (“sloping edge”), a variation on bijou (“jewel”), itself from Breton bisou, bizou (“ring worn on the finger”), from biz (“finger”).

Unrelated to similar bevel, which is of a different French origin.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛz.əl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: bezzle

bezel (plural bezels)

1. The sloping edge or face on a cutting tool.
2. The oblique side or face of a cut gem; especially the upper faceted portion of a brilliant (diamond), which projects from its setting.
3. The rim and flange which encompasses and fastens a jewel or other object, such as the crystal of a watch, in the cavity in which it is set.

   Synonym: collet

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     “There,” she went on, “it must be one like to it, and yet never did I see one like to it, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it prized it much. But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the bezel of a ring.

4. (computing) The panel that covers the front of a computer case, or the panel covering each drive bay that can be removed to install a removable drive that requires external access, such as a CD/DVD-ROM drive, which usually has its own preinstalled bezel.
5. (computing) The area on the front of a computing device surrounding the display.

   Modern smartphones have very thin bezels.

• beazle
• bevel
• collet

• “bezel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Nouveau Petit Larousse illustré. Dictionnaire encyclopédique. Paris, Librairie Larousse, 1952, 146th edition