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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chap.

A man, a fellow.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/t͡ʃæp/
  1. A man, a fellow.

    Who’s that chap over there?
  2. A customer, a buyer.

    UK · dialectal
  3. A child.

    Southern-US
Where this word comes from

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

verb/t͡ʃæp/
  1. Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.

    intransitive
  2. To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.

    transitive
  3. To strike, knock.

    Northern-England · Scotland
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/t͡ʃæp/
  1. A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.

  2. A division; a breach, as in a party.

    obsolete
  3. A blow; a rap.

    Scotland
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/t͡ʃæp/
  1. The jaw.

    archaic · in-plural · often
  2. One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.

Where this word comes from

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

noun/t͡ʃæp/
  1. Obsolete form of chop (“Asian seal used on documents”).

    alt-of · obsolete
noun/t͡ʃæp/
  1. Clipping of chapter (“division of a text”).

    Internet · abbreviation · alt-of · clipping
Where this word comes from

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.