chaw

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɔ/
  • (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɔː/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

  Rhymes: -ɔː

• Homophone: chore (non-rhotic)

Etymology 1

From Middle English chawen, an unexplained variation of chewen (“to chew”). See chew for more. Cognate with Middle Dutch cauwen ("to chew"; whence Dutch kauwen), obsolete Dutch kauw (“the act of chewing, that which is chewed, chewed mass, wad of tobacco”), Middle Low German kauwen, kauen (“to chew”). Compare also Old English ġecow (“that which is chewed, food”) and *ġeċēow (“chewing”), whence Middle English icheu (“gnawing, biting”).

Noun

chaw (countable and uncountable, plural chaws)

1. (countable) That which is chewed.
2. (Appalachia, informal, uncountable) Chewing tobacco.

   When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth.

   • 1889, Mark Twain, chapter 21, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

     "YOU give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back intrust, nuther."

   • 1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug:

     He […] went into the store and behind the counter and reached up and got the plug of chewing tobacco and unwrapped it and bit off a chaw.

Verb

chaw (third-person singular simple present chaws, present participle chawing, simple past and past participle chawed)

1. (archaic or nonstandard outside dialects, e.g. Appalachia, Southern US) To chew; grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud).
   • c. 1540, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Translations from the Æneid, Book 4, in The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1920, page 130^[1]:

     The trampling steede, with gold and purple trapt,

     Chawing the fomie bit, there fercely stood.

   • 2006, Hackett (Indianapolis) edition of Edmund Spenser's [1590] “Book I, Canto IV” of The Faerie Queene, page 62:

     And next to him malicious Envy rode,
     Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
     Betweene his cankred teeth a venemous tode […]

   • 1682, John Dryden, The Medall. A Satyre against Sedition‎^[2], lines 145–8:

     The Man who laugh'd but once, to see an Ass
     Mumbling to make the cross-grained Thistles pass,
     Might laugh again, to see a Jury chaw
     The prickles of unpalatable Law.

   • 1884, Mark Twain, chapter 29, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

     […] the king he set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something […]

   • 1942, Emily Carr, “The Orange Lily”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:

     Anne passed the lily. Beyond was the bed of pinks—white, clove, cinnamon. […] Anne's scissors chawed the wiry stems almost as sapless as the everlastings.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 29:
     , Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006, p. 62,

     "I home retourning, fraught with fowle despight,
     And chawing vengeaunce all the way I went,
     Soone as my loathed love appeard in sight,
     With wrathfull hand I slew her innocent;

3. (UK, slang) To steal.

   Some pikey's chawed my bike.

4. (dialectal, intransitive) To be sulky.

Derived terms

• chawbacon
• chawer
• chaw up

 

Etymology 2

From Early Modern English chawe, either a form of Middle English chaul, chavel, jawle (“jaw”) (whence also English jowl) which has lost the final -l, or a form of Middle English jowe, jawe (“jaw”). See jowl and jaw for more.

Noun

chaw (plural chaws)

1. (obsolete) The jaw.
   • 2006, Hackett (Indianapolis) edition of Edmund Spenser's [1590] “Book I, Canto IV” of The Faerie Queene, page 62:

     all the poison ran about his chaw

Etymology 3

Noun

chaw (uncountable)

1. Obsolete form of cha (“tea”).

See also

• chees and chaws

Anagrams

• WHCA, Wach