chime

Meanings

Noun

• A musical instrument producing a sound when struck, similar to a bell (e.g. a tubular metal bar) or actually a bell. Often used in the plural to refer to the set: the chimes.
• An individual ringing component of such a set.
• A small bell or other ringing or tone-making device as a component of some other device.
• The sound of such an instrument or device.
• A small hammer or other device used to strike a bell.
• Alternative of chine

Verb

• To make the sound of a chime.
• To cause to sound in harmony; to play a tune, as upon a set of bells; to move or strike in harmony.
• To utter harmoniously; to recite rhythmically.
• To agree; to correspond.
• To make a rude correspondence of sounds; to jingle, as in rhyming.

Related

Similar words

• alarm
• bell
• buzz
• buzzer
• carillon
• clapper
• curfew
• dinger
• ding-dong
• glockenspiel
• gong
• peal
• ringer
• siren
• tintinnabulum
• tocsin
• toll
• vesper

Origin

• From Middle English chime, chim, chimbe, chymbe, a shortening of chimbelle (misinterpreted as chymme-belle, chimbe-belle), from Old English ċimbala, ċimbal, from Latin cymbalum.