Etymology

tinkle

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Today it means: To make light metallic sounds, rather like a very small bell. Full definition →

Middle English tinclen
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromtinclen
  2. English todaytinkle

From Middle English tinclen, equivalent to tink + -le (frequentative suffix). Cognate with West Frisian tinkelje (“to tinkle”), Dutch tinkelen (“to tinkle”), German Low German tinkeln (“to flicker, glitter, sparkle”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.