Appeau

Appeau [Fr. appel, call], 1. Fr. word in use from the 14th c. to the 16th for a clapperless bell, struck on the outside by a hammer and used as bell chime, carillon, tower bell, clockwork. The Dictionnaire de Trévoux of 1771 says that it was a small bell for sounding the quarter and half hours, and that laymen called it timbre; 2. from 1380 on, a decoy whistle for imitating and attracting birds. Randle Cotgrave (in 1611) calls it “the reed or little pipe wherewith fowlers call sillie birds …”…