chap

noun9

1. •
   a man, usually talked about in a friendly way

   • Who’s that chap over there?
2. •
   A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
3. •
   (Internet) Clipping of chapter (“division of a text”).
4. •
   (Southern-US) A child.
5. •
   One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.
6. •
   (dialect, UK) A customer, a buyer.

   • 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. — 1728
7. •
   (Scotland) A blow; a rap.
8. •
   (no longer used) A division; a breach, as in a party.

   • Many clefts and chaps in our council board. — 1655
9. •
   [in the plural] (no longer used) The jaw.

   • This wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning / The washing of ten tides! — 1610

verb3

1. •
   Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
2. •
   To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.

   • Then would unbalanced heat licentious reign, / Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain. — 1712
3. •
   (Scotland, Northern-England) To strike, knock.

   • And then it seems that through the open door there came the chapping of a clock. — 1902

noun2

1. •
   Abbreviation of chapter.

   • 1853, chap. 91, what amends secs. 7 and 10, laws 1851, chap. 43; chap. 338, except sec. 4; chaps. 387 and 454; chap. 498, sec. 9, all relating to petit jurors; chaps. 511, 529, 554 — 1853
2. •
   Abbreviation of chaplain.