Other forms: chimes, chiming, chimed
To chime is to ring in clear musical notes — church bells, a doorbell, a clock striking the hour. It is a pleasanter word than ring and a more tuneful one: a chime has pitch, where a ring may not.
The noun covers both the sound and the instrument: wind chimes on a porch, the chimes of a clock. There is a useful figurative phrase, chime with, meaning to fit or agree: the findings chime with what teachers have been saying. And chime in means to join a conversation, usually uninvited and usually briefly. That last one is the commonest of all in speech.
1verbchimeTo ring with clear musical notes.
“The clock chimed four as they came in.”
2nounsoundA ringing musical sound, or the set of bells that makes it.
“There were wind chimes hanging by the door.”
3verbfitTo fit or agree with something.
“The report chimes with what the staff had already said.”
chime is a musical ringing.
Middle English chymbe came from cymbal, through Old French — so a chime was originally a cymbal, and then the set of bells that replaced it. The word climbed from one instrument to another and kept only the sound.
Latin
cymbalum
fro-nor
chimbe — cymbal
Middle English
chymbe
English, today
chime
Built from
From Middle English chymbe, chyme, probably from fro-nor chimbe (“cymbal”), a a back-formation from chimble, cimble, from Latin cymbalum; perhaps reinforced by a misinterpretation of a chymbele (from Old English ċimbala, ċimbal (“cymbal”)) as chymbe belle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA