cham

See also chậm, and Cham.

English

Etymology

From French cham, from Turkish han (“lord, prince”) (borrowed into Arabic, Persian, Mongolian etc.).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kæm/

Noun

cham (plural chams)

1. Archaic spelling of khan.
   • 1840, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War‎

     But Baiothnoi, chief captain of the Tartarian army (for they were not admitted to speak with the great cham himself), cried quits with this friar, outvying him with the greatness and divinity of their cham; and send back by them a blunt letter...

2. An autocrat or dominant critic, especially Samuel Johnson.
   • 1997: "Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro’ the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four." — Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon
   • 2007: The Tonsons [...] would publish Johnson's Shakespeare only by subscription, obliging the Great Cham to sell copies well ahead of publication — Michael Dobson, ‘For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen’, London Review of Books 29:9, p. 3

Anagrams

• Mach

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French

Adjective

cham m (feminine chame, masculine plural chams, feminine plural chames)

1. Cham

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Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA: [xaːmˠ], [xamˠ]

Adjective

cham

1. Mutated form of cam.

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Middle English

Etymology

See ch-.

Verb

cham

1. I am.