chap

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃæp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -æp

Clipping of chapman (“dealer, customer”) in 16th-century English.

chap (plural chaps)

1. (dated outside UK and Australia) A man, a fellow.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:man

   Who’s that chap over there?

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 194:

     “Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps.”

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     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, chapter 20, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     ‘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. (UK, dialectal) A customer, a buyer.
   • 1728, John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, Act 3:

     If you have Blacks of any kind, brought in of late; Mantoes--Velvet Scarfs--Petticoats--Let it be what it will--I am your Chap--for all my Ladies are very fond of Mourning.

3. (Southern US) A child.

• chap-hop
• chapess
• chappie
• chappo
• old chap

• Pennsylvania German: Tschaepp (“guy”)

From Middle English chappen (“to split open, burst, chap”), of uncertain origin. Compare Middle English choppen (“to chop”), Dutch kappen (“to cut, chop, hack”). Perhaps related to chip.

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. (transitive) To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.
   • 1712, Richard Blackmore, Creation: A Philosophical Poem:

     Then would unbalanced heat licentious reign, / Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain.

   • 1591, John Lyly, Endymion:

     whose fair face neither the summer's blaze can scorch nor winter's blast chap.

3. (Scotland, Northern England) To strike, knock.
   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     And then it seems that through the open door there came the chapping of a clock.

   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 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 […]

• chap someone's hide
• chapped
• chapstick

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.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC:

     Many clefts and chaps in our council board.

3. (Scotland) A blow; a rap.

• chappy

From Northern English chafts (“jaws”). Compare also Middle English cheppe (“one side of the jaw, chap”).

chap (plural chaps)

1. (archaic, often in the plural) The jaw.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     This wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning / The washing of ten tides!

   • a. 1667, Abraham Cowley, The Song:

     His chaps were all besmear'd with crimson blood.

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps.

2. One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.

• chop

Shortening

chap (plural chaps)

1. (Internet slang) Clipping of chapter (“division of a text”).

• CHPA, HCAP, PHAC, Pach

• Audio

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chap m (plural chappen, diminutive chappie n)

1. Alternative spelling of sjap.

• IPA^(key): /xap/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -ap
• Syllabification: chap

Onomatopoeic.

• chaps

chap

1. used to express an unexpected movement involving a sudden grasping of something

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

chap

1. second-person singular imperative of chapać

• chap in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• chap in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Late Middle English, from Old English *ċeappian, *ċieppan, from Proto-Germanic *kapp-, *kap- (“to chop; cut; split”), like also English chop. The ultimate origin is uncertain; possibly from Vulgar Latin *cuppare (“to behead”), from Latin caput (“head”) and influenced by Old French couper (“to strike”).[1]

Akin to Saterland Frisian kappe, kapje (“to hack; chop; lop off”), Dutch kappen (“to chop, cut, hew”), Middle Low German koppen (“to cut off, lop, poll”), German Low German kappen (“to cut off; clip”), German kappen (“to cut; clip”), German dialectal chapfen (“to chop into small pieces”), Danish kappe (“to cut, lop off, poll”), Swedish kapa (“to cut”), Albanian copë (“piece, chunk”), Old English *ċippian (attested in forċippian (“to cut off”)).

• IPA^(key): /tʃap/

chap

1. (transitive, intransitive) To knock (on) or strike.

• cap

From Proto-Mon-Khmer *cap ~ *caap (“to seize”). Cognate with Old Khmer cap (“to seize, catch”), Kuy caːp (“to catch, hold”).

chap[1]

1. to hold
2. to catch; to seize
3. to touch

• (to hold): pegak
• (to touch): lèèw