This is an irregular feature - both in frequency and oddness - dedicated to a word or phrase I came across that I have never previously used.tintinnabulate (tin-tin-AH-byoo-layt) v. to ring; to sound like a small bell; to make a tinkling sound, like the chime of bells.
I knew that this word was somehow related to bells, as I recognized the Latin root word tintinnabulum ("bell"). I came across the word tintinnabulate in an 1874 collection of the works of John Ruskin:
Which indeed it is; and travellers are always greatly amused at being allowed to ring this bell; but it never occurs to them to ask how it came to be ringable:—how that tintinnabulate roof differs from the dome of the Pantheon, expands into the dome of Florence, or declines into the whispering gallery of St. Paul's.Here, though, Ruskin used the word tintinnabulate as an adjective, whereas modern writers would be more likely to use the adjectival forms tintinnabular or tintinnabulous.
And no: you may not ring my bell.
