American Heritage Dictionary Entry: chime HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key. Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window. guide to the dictionary THE USAGE PANEL The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions. The Panelists NEED HELP SOLVING A CROSSWORD PUZZLE? Go to our Crossword Puzzle Solver and type in the letters that you know, and the Solver will produce a list of possible solutions. -- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more. OPEN DICTIONARY PROJECT Share your ideas for new words and new meanings of old words! Start Sharing Now! -- See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series! Find out more! INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES? Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com chime 1 (chīm) Share: Tweet n. 1. An apparatus for striking a bell or set of bells to produce a musical sound. 2. often chimes Music A set of tuned bells used as an orchestral instrument. 3. A single bell, as in the mechanism of a clock. 4. The sound produced by or as if by a bell or bells. 5. Agreement; accord: a flawless chime of romance and reality. v. chimed, chim·ing, chimes v.intr. 1. a. To sound with a harmonious ring when struck. b. To make a musical sound by striking a bell or set of bells. 2. To be in agreement or accord: harmonize: Their views chimed with ours. The seafood and wine chimed perfectly. v.tr. 1. To produce (music) by striking bells. 2. To strike (a bell) to produce music. 3. a. To signal or make known by chiming: The clock chimed noon. b. To call, send, or welcome by chiming. 4. To repeat insistently.Phrasal Verb: chime in 1. To interrupt the speech of others, especially with an unwanted opinion. 2. To join in harmoniously. 3. To go together harmoniously; agree. [From Middle English chimbe (belle), from Old French, variant of cimble, cymbal, from Latin cymbalum; see CYMBAL.] chimer n. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. chime 2 (chīm) Share: Tweet n. The rim of a cask. [Middle English chimb, from Old English cim-, cimb- (in cimstānas, bases of a pillar, and cimbing, jointing); see gembh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices: Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. 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