Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The rim of a cask.
  • noun An apparatus for striking a bell or set of bells to produce a musical sound.
  • noun Music A set of tuned bells used as an orchestral instrument.
  • noun A single bell, as in the mechanism of a clock.
  • noun The sound produced by or as if by a bell or bells.
  • noun Agreement; accord.
  • intransitive verb To sound with a harmonious ring when struck.
  • intransitive verb To make a musical sound by striking a bell or set of bells.
  • intransitive verb To be in agreement or accord: harmonize.
  • intransitive verb To produce (music) by striking bells.
  • intransitive verb To strike (a bell) to produce music.
  • intransitive verb To signal or make known by chiming.
  • intransitive verb To call, send, or welcome by chiming.
  • intransitive verb To repeat insistently.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To ring as a bell; jingle; jangle.
  • To ring as bells in unison; sound in consonance, rhythm, or harmony; give out harmonious sounds; accord.
  • To agree; suit; harmonize: absolutely or with with.
  • To cause to sound harmoniously, as a set of bells; strike with or move to measure.
  • To utter harmoniously; recite with rhythmical flow.
  • Nautical, to make a chime or chimb in.
  • noun The edge or brim of a cask or tub, formed by the ends of the staves projecting beyond the head or bottom.
  • noun In ship-building, that part of the waterway or thick plank at the side left above the deck and hollowed out to form a watercourse.
  • To announce, indicate, summon, or bring about by chiming or stroke of bell: as, to chime (or strike) some particular hour; to chime one to sleep, or to supper, etc.
  • noun A cymbal; probably also a bell.
  • noun A set of bells (regularly five to twelve) tuned to a musical scale: called chimes, or a chime of bells.
  • noun The harmonious sound of bells, or (rarely) of musical instruments.
  • noun An arrangement of bells and strikers in an organ, musical box, clock, etc.
  • noun Correspondence of sounds in general; rarely, proportion or harmonious relation: as, chimes of “verses,”

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See chine, n., 3.
  • noun The harmonious sound of bells, or of musical instruments.
  • noun A set of bells musically tuned to each other; specif., in the pl., the music performed on such a set of bells by hand, or produced by mechanism to accompany the striking of the hours or their divisions.
  • noun Pleasing correspondence of proportion, relation, or sound.
  • intransitive verb To cause to sound in harmony; to play a tune, as upon a set of bells; to move or strike in harmony.
  • intransitive verb To utter harmoniously; to recite rhythmically.
  • intransitive verb To sound in harmonious accord, as bells.
  • intransitive verb To be in harmony; to agree; to suit; to harmonize; to correspond; to fall in with.
  • intransitive verb colloq. To join in a conversation; to express assent; -- followed by in or in with.
  • intransitive verb To make a rude correspondence of sounds; to jingle, as in rhyming.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music 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.
  • noun An individual ringing component of such a set.
  • noun A small bell or other ringing or tone-making device as a component of some other device.
  • noun The sound of such an instrument or device.
  • noun A small hammer or other device used to strike a bell.
  • verb intransitive To make the sound of a chime.
  • verb transitive To cause to sound in harmony; to play a tune, as upon a set of bells; to move or strike in harmony.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chimb, from Old English cim-, cimb- (in cimstānas, bases of a pillar, and cimbing, jointing); see gembh- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English chimbe (belle), from Old French, variant of cimble, cymbal, from Latin cymbalum; see cymbal.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cymbalum (maybe via Old French chimbe).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word chime.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • How could you run from me now?

    The loneliest chime in the house

    The loneliest chime in the house

    You let it out you let it out

    Come to me Calvary still

    I’m weeding and raking until

    I’m bleeding in spite of my love for you

    It bruised and bruised my will

    ("The Owl And The Tanager", by Sufjan Stevens)

    March 8, 2011