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chap - What does it mean?

Definition of 'chap'

English

Etymology 1

Shortened from in 16th century English.

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (dated|outside|UK|and|Australia) A man, a fellow.
  • *
    • |title= Mr. Pratt's Patients|chapter=1 |passage=A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well.}}
  • *{{quote-book|year=1963|author=(Margery Allingham)|title=(The China Governess)
    • |chapter=20 citation |passage=‘No. I only opened the door a foot and put my head in. The street lamps shine into that room. I could see him. He was all right. Sleeping like a great grampus. Poor, poor chap .’}}
  • (UK|dialectal) A customer, a buyer.
  • * Steele
    • If you want to sell, here is your chap .
  • (Southern US) A child.
    • Usage notes
    This word's existence in the US can be seen in the Pennsylvania German term .
    Synonyms
    * See also
    Derived terms
    * chappie * chappo

    Etymology 2

    Related to chip .

    Verb

    (chapp)
  • Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
  • To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.
  • * Blackmore
    • Then would unbalanced heat licentious reign, / Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain.
  • * Lyly
    • Nor winter's blast chap her fair face.
  • (Scotland|northern England) To strike, knock.
  • * 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, page 35:
    • The door was shut into my class. I had to chap it and then Miss Rankine came and opened it and gived me an angry look [...].
    Derived terms
    * chapped * chapstick

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
  • (obsolete) A division; a breach, as in a party.
  • * T. Fuller
    • Many clefts and chaps in our council board.
  • (Scotland) A blow; a rap.
    • Derived terms
    * chappy

    Etymology 3

    From Northern English .

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (archaic) The jaw (often in plural).
  • *1610 , , by Shakespeare
    • This wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning / The washing of ten tides!
  • * Cowley
    • His chaps were all besmeared with crimson blood.
  • * Shakespeare
    • He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps .
  • One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.

    • See also

    * chaps

    Anagrams

    *

    Similar to 'chap'

    cheap, cop, chop, cup, chip, cap, cheep, coup, coop, cep, caup