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(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.
Hugo had a recording of someone playing the chimes against a background of surf noise that she found calming.
Sylvia was a chime player in the school orchestra.
The microwave chimed to indicate that it was done cooking.
I got up for lunch as soon as the wall clock began chiming noon.
1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 163:
An interesting feature of the church is the invisible clock, which you can hear thumping away as you enter. Constructed in 1525, it is one of the oldest timepieces in England. It chimes the hours and the quarters, and every three hours it plays a hymn. But it has no faces.
(transitive) To cause to sound in harmony; to play a tune, as upon a set of bells; to move or strike in harmony.
1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis., London: Jacob Tonson,, →OCLC:
And chime their sounding hammers.
(transitive) To utter harmoniously; to recite rhythmically.
Alternative form of chine(“edge of a cask; part of a ship; etc.”)
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing. (See the entry for “chime”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)