chimbly
Dialect way of saying chimney, with an extra b or a softer middle.
Also called chimbley, chimley.
Updated September 21, 2026
chimbly pronunciation
/CHIM-blee/
Meaning
Same brick stack your fire smoke goes up. Country Southern and Appalachian speech often turns chimney into chimbly, chimbley, or chimley. It is not a different object. It is an older shape of the word that stuck in mountain mouths, the kind of thing you'd hear about cleaning soot out of or hanging stockings on.
How folks use it
- “Smoke's backing up. Somebody needs to clean that chimbly.”
- “Santa come down the chimbly, or so the kids swear.”
Origin and etymology
Scots and northern English dialects long said chimley or chimbley for chimney, forms dated back centuries in Britain. Scotch-Irish settlers carried those pronunciations into Appalachia and the wider South. Merriam-Webster lists chimbly as a dialect variant, and Georgia provincialisms already wrote it that way in 1837.
Frequently asked questions
Is chimbly just a mispronunciation?
No. It is an old dialect form with roots in Scots and northern English speech. Mountain talk kept it. Schoolbooks prefer chimney.