Word.ws English Dictionary

chimley

/ˈt͡ʃɪmli/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/ˈtʃɪmli/

chimley is the alternative form of chimney.

Meaning of chimney

Noun

chimney (plural chimneys or (archaic) chimnies)

  1. A vertical tube or hollow column used to emit environmentally polluting gaseous and solid matter (including but not limited to by-products of burning carbon- or hydrocarbon-based fuels); a flue.
    • Our chimney was a square hole in the roof: it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us coughing and piping the eye.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    lum
  2. The glass flue surrounding the flame of an oil lamp.
    • By next winter he was spending every evening poring over the work of Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné on the French Reformation by the light of a little oil lamp, with a tiny cistern the size of an orange and no chimney[.]1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 22
  3. (UK) The smokestack of a steam locomotive.
  4. A narrow cleft in a rock face; a narrow vertical cave passage.
  5. (euphemistic, vulgar) A vagina.
  6. (Northern Ireland, slang) A black eye; a shiner.

See all 7 meanings of chimney

Proper noun capitalized: Chimley

Chimley

  1. (obsolete) Obsolete form of Chulmleigh.
    • CHIDLEY, or Chimley, a market-town of Devonſhire, about eighteen miles north-weſt of Exeter...1771, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st ed., Vol. II, p. 183

Forms of chimley

pluralchimleys
alternative formchimly

Origin of chimley

By dissimilation of mn to ml.

A pronunciation spelling of Chulmleigh. Cf. Chumley and Cholmondeley.

Questions about chimley

What is chimley the alternative form of?
Chimley is the alternative form of chimney.
What part of speech is chimley?
Chimley is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chimley?
Chimley is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃɪmli/.

Words near chimley in the dictionary

  1. chimkin
  2. chimla
  3. chimlas
  4. chimlee
  5. chimlees
  6. chimley
  7. chimleys
  8. chimlies
  9. chimly
  10. Chimmesyan
  11. Chimmesyans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chimley (page history and authors); Chimley (page history and authors); chimney (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chimley.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chimley. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.