Chiefly known to us because of its use by Edgar Allan Poe in “The Bells,” the word tintinnabulation is based on the Latin tintinnabulum, “a bell,” from tintinnare, “to ring.”
It seems probable that tintinnare and its relatives were coined in imitation of the sound of bells, quite as our ding-dong, ting-a-ling, etc., were coined for the same purpose.
