noun (used with a plural verb)
- a pair of joined leather leggings, often widely flared, worn over trousers, especially by cowboys, as protection against burs, rope burns, etc., while on horseback.
verb (used with object), chapped, chap·ping.
- to crack, roughen, and redden (the skin): The windy, cold weather chapped her lips.
- 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.
- to become chapped.
noun
- a fissure or crack, especially in the skin.
- Scot. a knock; rap.
noun
- Chiefly British Informal: Older Use. a fellow; man or boy.
- Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. a baby or young child.
- British Dialect. a customer.
noun
pl n
- leather overalls without a seat, worn by cowboysAlso called: chaparejos, chaparajos
verb chaps, chapping or chapped
- (of the skin) to make or become raw and cracked, esp by exposure to cold
- Scot (of a clock) to strike (the hour)
- Scot to knock (at a door, window, etc)
noun
- (usually plural) a cracked or sore patch on the skin caused by chapping
- Scot a knock
noun
- informal a man or boy; fellow
noun
- a less common word for chop 3
1844, American English, short for chaparejos, from Mexican Spanish chaparreras, overalls worn to protect from chaparro (see chaparral).
“jaws, cheeks,” from chap (n.), 1550s, of unknown origin. Hence, chap-fallen (1590s).
1570s, “customer,” short for obsolete chapman “purchaser, trader” (see cheap). Colloquial sense of “lad, fellow” is first attested 1716 (cf. slang tough customer).
“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.