chap
pronunciation
How to pronounce chap in British English:
UK [tʃæp]
How to pronounce chap in American English:
US [tʃæp]
-
- Noun:
- a boy or man
- a long narrow depression in a surface
- a crack in a lip caused usually by cold
- (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
-
- Verb:
- crack due to dehydration
Word Origin
- chap
- chap: There are four distinct words chap in English. The oldest, ‘sore on the skin’ [14], originally meant more generally ‘crack, split’, and may be related to Middle Low German kappen ‘chop off’; it seems ultimately to be the same word as chop ‘cut’. Chap ‘jaw’ [16] (as in Bath chaps) is probably a variant of chop (as in ‘lick one’s chops’). Chap ‘fellow’ [16] originally meant ‘customer’; it is an abbreviation of chapman ‘trader’ [OE] (source of the common surname, but now obsolete as an ordinary noun), whose first element is related to English cheap. Chaps ‘leggings’ [19] is short for Mexican Spanish chaparreras, a derivative of Spanish chaparro ‘evergreen oak’; they were named from their use in protecting the legs of riders from the low thick scrub that grows in Mexico and Texas (named with another derivative of chaparro, chaparral). Chaparro itself probably comes from Basque txapar, a diminutive of saphar ‘thicket’.=> chop; cheap; chaparral
- chap (n.)
- 1570s, "customer," short for obsolete chapman "purchaser, trader" (see cheap). Colloquial sense of "lad, fellow" is first attested 1716 (compare slang tough customer).
- chap (v.)
- "to crack," mid-15c., chappen (intransitive) "to split, burst open;" "cause to crack" (transitive); perhaps a variant of choppen (see chop (v.), and compare strap/strop), or related to Middle Dutch kappen "to chop, cut," Danish kappe, Swedish kappa "to cut." Related: Chapped; chapping. The noun meaning "fissure in the skin" is from late 14c.
Example
- 1. Poor chap ; clearly he needs to get away from the coalface a bit more .
- 2. I have never inquired into the causes of its demise but it seems to have been reasonably amicable , although she had not seen the chap for five years .
- 3. The poor chap was very embarrassed and explained he was in a rush in the morning to get his kids ready for school and didn 't have time for a shower .
- 4. Your daughter is either going to have to get her hooks into this chap unusually early , or she is going to have to keep him on the boil for another decade a lot of nail-painting .
- 5. It would not require great investigative skill to out the north korean leader as " a flabby old chap " , to use the words attributed to singapore 's former prime minister , lee kuan yew .