Chap

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tʃæp/
• Rhymes: -æp

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

Full definition of chap

Noun

1. (dated except UK and Australia) A man, a fellow.
• 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 1, 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.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 20, ‘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.’
2. Who’s that chap over there?
3. (UK, dialectal) A customer, a buyer.
• SteeleIf you want to sell, here is your chap.
4. (Southern US) A child.

Usage notes

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

Synonyms

Derived terms

• chappie
• chappo

Related to chip.

Verb

1. (intransitive) Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
2. (transitive) To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.
• BlackmoreThen would unbalanced heat licentious reign,
  Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain.
• LylyNor winter's blast chap her fair face.
3. (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

• chapped
• chapstick

Noun

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. FullerMany clefts and chaps in our council board.
3. (Scotland) A blow; a rap.

Derived terms

• chappy

From Northern English chafts ("jaws").

Noun

1. (archaic) The jaw (often in plural).
• 1610, , by ShakespeareThis wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning
  The washing of ten tides!
• CowleyHis chaps were all besmeared with crimson blood.
• ShakespeareHe unseamed him from the nave to the chaps.
2. One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.

Anagrams

• CHPA