chalk up

noun

1. a soft, white, powdery limestone consisting chiefly of fossil shells of foraminifers.
2. a prepared piece of chalk or chalklike substance for marking, as a blackboard crayon.
3. a mark made with chalk.
4. a score or tally.

verb (used with object)

5. to mark or write with chalk.
6. to rub over or whiten with chalk.
7. to treat or mix with chalk: to chalk a billiard cue.
8. to make pale; blanch: Terror chalked her face.

verb (used without object)

9. (of paint) to powder from weathering.

adjective

10. of, made of, or drawn with chalk.

Verb Phrases

11. chalk up,
    1. to score or earn: They chalked up two runs in the first inning.
    2. to charge or ascribe to: It was a poor performance, but may be chalked up to lack of practice.

verb (tr, adverb) informal

1. to score or register (something)we chalked up 100 in the game
2. to credit (money) to an account etc (esp in the phrase chalk it up)

noun

1. a soft fine-grained white sedimentary rock consisting of nearly pure calcium carbonate, containing minute fossil fragments of marine organisms, usually without a cementing material
2. a piece of chalk or a substance like chalk, often coloured, used for writing and drawing on a blackboard
3. a line, mark, etc made with chalk
4. billiards snooker a small cube of prepared chalk or similar substance for rubbing the tip of a cue
5. British a score, tally, or record
6. as alike as chalk and cheese or as different as chalk and cheese informal totally different in essentials
7. by a long chalk British informal by far
8. can’t tell chalk from cheese or doesn’t know chalk from cheese to be unable to judge or appreciate important differences
9. not by a long chalk British informal by no means; not possibly
10. (modifier) made of chalk

verb

11. to draw or mark (something) with chalk
12. (tr) to mark, rub, or whiten with or as if with chalk
13. (intr) (of paint) to become chalky; powder
14. (tr) to spread chalk on (land) as a fertilizer

v.

1570s, “to mix with chalk;” 1590s as “to mark with chalk,” from chalk (n.). Related: Chalked; chalking. Old English had cealcian “to whiten.” Certain chalk marks on shipped objects meant “admitted” or “shipped free,” hence some figurative senses. Chalk boards also were commonly used in keeping credit, score, etc., hence figurative use of chalk it up (1903).

n.

Old English cealc “chalk, lime, plaster; pebble,” a West Germanic borrowing from Latin calx (2) “limestone, lime (crushed limestone), small stone,” from Greek khalix “small pebble,” which many trace to a PIE root for “split, break up.” In most Germanic languages still with the “limestone” sense, but in English transferred to the opaque, white, soft limestone found abundantly in the south of the island. Modern spelling is from early 14c. The Latin word for “chalk” was creta, which also is of unknown origin.

1. A soft, white, gray, or yellow limestone consisting mainly of calcium carbonate and formed primarily from the accumulation of fossil microorganisms such as foraminifera and calcareous algae. Chalk is used in making lime, cement, and fertilizers, and as a whitening pigment in ceramics, paints, and cosmetics. The chalk used in classrooms is usually artificial.

1

Score or earn, as in She chalked up enough points to be seeded first in the tournament. This term alludes to recording accounts (and later, scores) in chalk on a slate. [c. 1700]

2

Credit or ascribe, as They chalked their success up to experience. [First half of 1900s]