• IPA: /t͡ʃæp/

chap (plural chaps)

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

   Synonyms: 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.

• French: bougre, mec, quidam
• German: Kerl, Typ
• Italian: tipo, tizio
• Portuguese: camarada, cara (Brazil), cabra (Northeast Brazil)
• Russian: мужи́к
• Spanish: tipo

From Middle English chappen, of uncertain origin.

chap (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 […]

• German: aufrauen
• Portuguese: rachar
• Russian: тре́скаться

• French: crevasser

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.

From Northern English chafts ("jaws").

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

• Russian: че́люсть

Shortening

chap (plural chaps)

1. (internet slang) Clipping of chapter

1. (computing) Initialism of Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol

Borrowed from Khmer ឆាប.

1. Surname.