Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A man or boy; a fellow.
  • intransitive verb To cause (the skin) to roughen, redden, or crack, especially as a result of cold or exposure.
  • intransitive verb To split or become rough and sore.
  • noun A sore roughening or splitting of the skin, caused especially by cold or exposure.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The upper or lower part of the mouth; the jaw: commonly in the plural.
  • noun A jaw of a vise or clamp.
  • noun plural The mouth or entrance of a channel: as, the chops of the English channel.
  • An abbreviation of chapter.
  • noun A fissure, cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth or in the hands or feet: also used figuratively. Also chop.
  • noun A stroke of any kind; a blow; a knock; especially, a tap or rap, as on a door, to draw attention. Also chaup.
  • noun A buyer; a chapman.
  • noun A fellow; a man or a boy: used familiarly, like fellow, and usually with a qualifying adjective, old, young, little, poor, etc., and loosely, much as the word fellow is.
  • To choose; choose definitely; select and claim: as, I chap this.
  • To fix definitely; accept and agree to as binding; hold to (a proposal, or the terms of a bargain): as, I chaps that; I chap (or chaps) you.
  • noun An abbreviation of chaplain.
  • To cause to cleave, split, crack, or break in clefts: used of the effect of extreme cold followed by heat on exposed parts of the body, as the hands and lips, and sometimes of similar effects produced in any way on the surface of the earth, wood, etc. Also chop.
  • To strike, especially with a hammer or the like; beat.
  • To crack; open in slits, clefts, or fissures: as, the earth chaps; the hands chap. Also chop.
  • To knock, as at a door; strike, as a clock.
  • To buy or sell; trade: a variant of chop and cheap
  • noun The act of picking and choosing; selection: as, ‘chap and choice.’ See chap5, transitive verb

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A buyer; a chapman.
  • noun colloq. A man or boy; a youth; a fellow.
  • noun A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
  • noun obsolete A division; a breach, as in a party.
  • noun Scot. A blow; a rap.
  • noun One of the jaws or the fleshy covering of a jaw; -- commonly in the plural, and used of animals, and colloquially of human beings.
  • noun One of the jaws or cheeks of a vise, etc.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To bargain; to buy.
  • intransitive verb To crack or open in slits.
  • intransitive verb Scot. To strike; to knock; to rap.
  • transitive verb To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.
  • transitive verb Scot. To strike; to beat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
  • verb Scotland To strike, knock.
  • noun A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
  • noun obsolete A division; a breach, as in a party.
  • noun Scotland A blow; a rap.
  • noun archaic The jaw (often in plural).
  • noun dated A man, a fellow.
  • noun UK, dialectal A customer, a buyer.
  • noun southern US A child.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a boy or man
  • noun (usually in the plural) leather leggings without a seat; joined by a belt; often have flared outer flaps; worn over trousers by cowboys to protect their legs
  • noun a long narrow depression in a surface
  • verb crack due to dehydration
  • noun a crack in a lip caused usually by cold

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for chapman.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chappen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to chip.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Northern English chafts - "the jaws"

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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