chap

verb (used with object), chapped, chap·ping.

1. to crack, roughen, and redden (the skin): The windy, cold weather chapped her lips.
2. to cause (the ground, wood, etc.) to split, crack, or open in clefts: The summer heat and drought chapped the riverbank.

verb (used without object), chapped, chap·ping.

3. to become chapped.

noun

4. a fissure or crack, especially in the skin.
5. Scot. a knock; rap.

noun

1. Chiefly British Informal: Older Use. a fellow; man or boy.
2. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. a baby or young child.
3. British Dialect. a customer.

noun

1. chop³.

1. Chaplain.
2. chapter.

verb chaps, chapping or chapped

1. (of the skin) to make or become raw and cracked, esp by exposure to cold
2. Scot (of a clock) to strike (the hour)
3. Scot to knock (at a door, window, etc)

noun

4. (usually plural) a cracked or sore patch on the skin caused by chapping
5. Scot a knock

noun

1. informal a man or boy; fellow

noun

1. a less common word for chop 3

abbreviation for

1. chaplain
2. chapter

n.

1570s, “customer,” short for obsolete chapman “purchaser, trader” (see cheap). Colloquial sense of “lad, fellow” is first attested 1716 (cf. slang tough customer).

v.

“to crack,” mid-15c., chappen (intransitive) “to split, burst open;” “cause to crack” (transitive); perhaps a variant of choppen (see chop (v.), and cf. 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.