Meaning
To vary something repeatedly, running through the available alternatives: altering a routine, menu, presentation, or choice of words to keep it fresh. In modern figurative use it has nothing to do with bells or with money, though its literal source is bell-ringing. A touch literary or old-fashioned in American English; neutral and familiar in British English. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The idiom comes from change-ringing, the English art of ringing a set of church bells in ordered mathematical sequences, each permutation being called a 'change'; ringers traditionally aimed to sound the bells in as many different sequences as possible. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms records that the figurative expression, to keep varying how one performs an action or says something, alludes to this art and dates it to the early 1600s, making it an old bell-ringing metaphor in the language. Farlex labels the idiom primarily heard in the UK and Australia, while Merriam-Webster glosses it as running through the range of possible variations.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- rang the changes on
- ring the changes on
- ringing the changes
- rung the changes on
Usage Examples
- The bistro rings the changes on its menu every fortnight to keep regulars curious.
- Rather than rewrite the whole talk, she rang the changes on the slides and the opening story.
- The label has rung the changes with three different producers across the band's last four albums.