Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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.