Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CHIL'I-ARCH-Y, n.

A body consisting of a thousand men. – Mitford.

CHIL'I-ASM, n. [Gr. χιλια.]

The millennium, or thousand years when Satan is to be bound. – Rev. xx.

CHIL'I-AST, n. [Supra.]

One of the sect of Millenarians.

CHIL-I-FAC'TIVE, a.

See CHYLIFACTIVE.

CHIL-I-OL'I-TER, n.

See KILOLITER.

CHIL-I-OM'E-TER, n.

See KILOMETER.

CHILL, a.

1. Cool; moderately cold; tending to cause shivering; as, the chill vapors of night.
2. Shivering with cold. My chill veins freeze with despair. – Rowe.
3. Cool; distant; formal; dull; not warm, animated or affectionate; as, a chill reception.
4. Depressed; dispirited; dejected; discouraged.

CHILL, n. [Sax. cele, cyle, cyl, cold; celan, to be cold; D. kil; allied to Fr. geler, L. gelo, gelidus. See Cold, which appears to be radically the same word. The word cele in Saxon is a noun.]

1. A shivering with cold; rigors, as in an ague; the cold fit that precedes a fever; sensation of cold in an animal body; chilliness. [See Cold and Heat.]
2. A moderate degree of cold; chilliness in any body; that which gives the sensation of cold.

CHILL, v.t.

1. To cause a shivering, or shrinking of the skin; to check circulation or motion; as, to chill the blood, or the veins. The force of this word lies in expressing the shivering and shrinking caused by cold.
2. To make cold, or cool; as, the evening air chills the earth.
3. To blast with cold; to check the circulation in plants, and stop their growth. – Blackmore.
4. To check motion, life or action; to depress; to deject; to discourage; as to chill the gayety of the spirits. – Rogers.

CHILL'ED, pp.

Made cool; made to shiver; dejected.

CHIL'LI, n.

A Mexican plant, Guinea pepper.

CHILL'I-NESS, n.

1. A sensation of shivering; rigors.
2. A moderate degree of coldness; as, the chilliness of the air, which tends to cause a shivering.

CHILL'ING, ppr.

Cooling; causing to shiver.

CHILL'ING-LY, adv.

In a chilling manner.

CHILL'NESS, n.

Coolness; coldness; a shivering.

CHILL'Y, a.

Cool; moderately cold, such as to cause shivering; as, a chilly day, night, or air.

CHIL'O-GRAM, n.

See KILOGRAM.

CHIL'O-PODE, n. [Gr. χειλος, a lip, and πους, a foot.]

In zoology, an animal of the order of myriapodes or centipeds, in which the lower lip is framed by a pair of feet. – Brande.

CHIMB, n.

See CHIME.

CHIME, n.¹ [Chaucer, chimbe; Dan. kimer, to tinkle, to tingle, to toll a bell; L. campana, a bell, from its sound, whence It. scampanare, to chime.]

1. The consonant or harmonic sounds of several correspondent instruments. Instruments that made melodious chime. – Milton.
2. Correspondence of sound. Love … harmonized the chime. – Dryden.
3. The musical sounds of bells, struck with hammers. – Shak.
4. Correspondence of proportion or relation. – Grew.
5. A kind of periodical music, or tune of a clock, produced by an apparatus annexed to it.
6. A set of bells which chime, or ring in harmony.

CHIME, n.² [D. kim; G. kimme, edge, brim.]

The edge or brim of a cask or tub, formed by the ends of the staves.

CHIME, v.i.

1. To sound in consonance or harmony; to accord. To make the rough recital aptly chime. – Prior.
2. To correspond in relation or proportion. Father and son, husband and wife, correlative terms, do readily chime. – Locke.
3. To agree; to fall in with. He often chimed in with the discourse. – Arbuthnot.
4. To agree; to suit with. – Locke.
5. To jingle; to clatter. – Smith. The sely tonge may wel ringe and chimbe. – Chaucer.

CHIME, v.t.

1. To move, strike, or cause to sound in harmony. – Dryden.
2. To strike or cause to sound, as a set of bells.

CHIM'ER, n.

One who chimes.

CHI-ME'RA, n. [L. chimæra; Gr. χιμαιρα, a goat, a monstrous beast.]

1. In fabulous history, a monster with three heads, that of a lion, of a goat, and of a dragon, vomiting flames. The fore parts of the body were those of a lion, the middle was that of a goat, and the hinder parts were those of a dragon; supposed to represent a volcanic mountain in Lycia, whose top was the resort of lions, the middle, that of goats, and the foot, that of serpents. Hence,
2. In modern usage, a vain or idle fancy; a creature of the imagination, composed of contradictions or absurdities, that can have no existence except in thought. – Encyc.