Chimble

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A shallow wooden bowl or small trough, of the kind once used in dialect speech for holding food or liquid
2. An old regional term for a small wooden vessel, shaped like a bowl or trough and used for domestic work
3. A dialect word for a little wooden container, hollowed out like a bowl and used for carrying or holding things

Etymology: "Chimble" is a dialect word for a small wooden bowl, and it is one of the few English words whose history is tangled with a sound change that left the spelling behind. It is the older form of "chimbley" and related words, and its roots go back to Old English "cymbe", a wooden drinking vessel, the same word that gave Modern English "chimble" its unusual shape through regional pronunciation. Dialect survey records place the word mainly in the north and west of England, where it was used for a wooden bowl or dish, often a turned one. The spelling "chimble" survives because "chimble" and "chimbley" were recorded by dialect dictionaries that tried to capture local speech as it sounded rather than as it was written in standard English. The distinct vowel and the final consonant cluster reflect the way the word was said in those communities, not a separate borrowed word. The word never entered the general written language, which is why it is best known from regional glossaries.