tintinnabulate means to ring, tinkle, toll, or otherwise sound like bells. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why “tintinnabulate” is a great word
To ring, tingle, toll, or otherwise sound like bells. From Latin tintinnabulatus (“furnished with a bell or bells”), from tintinnabulum (“a bell”), itself from tintinare, a reduplicated form of tinnire (“to ring, jingle”). First attested in English as a verb in 1906. Unlike “jingle,” which suggests a light, trivial chime, or “peal,” which demands a full, programmatic cascade, to tintinnabulate is to evoke the essential, resonant soul of the bell itself. It is the high, clear tremor of a silver sleigh-bell in winter air, the deep, humid throb of a cathedral bourdon felt in the chest, and the distant, melancholy chime from a buoy rocking on a dark sea—the persistent auditory ghost of something shaped to be struck.
Etymology
From Latin tintinnabulatus (“furnished with a bell or bells”), from tintinnabulum ("a bell"). Akin to tinnitus.
verb
- To ring, tinkle, toll, or otherwise sound like bells.