chimney

• chimley, chimbley (dialectal)

From Middle English chymeney, chymney, chymne, from Old French cheminee, from Late Latin camināta, from Latin caminus, from Ancient Greek κάμῑνος (kámīnos, “furnace”).

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• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /tʃɪmni/, (proscribed) /tʃɪməni/

chimney (plural chimneys)

a chimney

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.
   • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     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.

2. The glass flue surrounding the flame of an oil lamp.
3. (Britain) The smokestack of a steam locomotive.
4. A narrow cleft in a rock face; a narrow vertical cave passage.

chimney (third-person singular simple present chimneys, present participle chimneying, simple past and past participle chimneyed)

1. (climbing) To negotiate a chimney (narrow vertical cave passage) by pushing against the sides with back, feet, hands, etc.

• cowl
• fireplace
• flaunching
• flue
• smokestack
• stove