chap

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Contents

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Shortened from chapman (“dealer, customer”) in 16th century English.

Noun[edit]

chap (plural chaps)

  1. (dated, except UK and Australia) A man, a fellow.
    Who’s that chap over there?
  2. (UK, dialectal) A customer, a buyer.
  3. (southern US) A child.
Usage notes[edit]

This word's existence in the US can be seen in the Pennsylvania German term Tschaepp (“guy”).

Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
A man or fellow

Etymology 2[edit]

Related to chip.

Verb[edit]

chap (third-person singular simple present chaps, present participle chapping, simple past and past participle chapped)

  1. (intransitive) Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
  2. (Scotland, northern England) To strike, knock.
    • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, p. 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[edit]
Translations[edit]
(of skin) to split

Noun[edit]

chap (plural chaps)

  1. A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
  2. (obsolete) A division; a breach, as in a party.
    • T. Fuller
      Many clefts and chaps in our council board.
  3. (Scotland) A blow; a rap.
Derived terms[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Northern English chafts (“jaws”).

Noun[edit]

chap (plural chaps)

  1. (archaic) The jaw (often in plural).
    • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare
      This wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning / The washing of ten tides!
Translations[edit]
the jaw

See also[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

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