Chime

The story of the word

Middle English had chymbe belle, a bell struck to a tune, where the first word was Latin cymbalum from Greek κύμβαλον. Speakers reanalysed the phrase as noun plus noun, and chime walked off as a word of its own. κύμβαλον comes from κύμβη, a hollow bowl, which is exactly what a cymbal is. Cymbal and chime are one Greek word that reached English twice by different roads.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English

First recorded

14th century