Also 6–7 chappe. [Found first in the middle of the 16th c.; the variant chop is quoted from the Scottish poet Dunbar c. 1500, and is now more usual in certain senses. Perh. f. CHAP, CHOP v. (The suggestion that it is a southern corruption of the northern CHAFT, suits the sense, but no explanation of such a phonetic change appears). See also CHOP.]
1. Either of the two bones (with its covering of muscles, skin, etc.) that form the mouth; a jaw; also either half of the bill of a bird.
1575. Turberv., Bk. Venerie, 195. Take them with your tongs or clampes by the lower chappe.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 335. [The Crocodile] moveth his upper Chappe.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. i. (1686), 85. Broad and thick chaps are required in birds that speak.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., II. VI. iii. 177. The stork … produces no other noise than the clacking of its under-chap against the upper.
1870. J. G. Murphy, Comm. Lev. xi. 18. The pelican [has] … in the under chap a pouch capable of holding many quarts.
2. pl. The jaws as unitedly forming the mouth; the biting and devouring apparatus. Used of animals, esp. beasts of prey; and applied contemptuously or humorously to human beings, in which sense more commonly CHOP.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 231. The hooke ouerthwarteth & catcheth hold of his chappes.
1569. Golding, trans. Heminge’s Post., 18. The deliverer of mankinde out of the chappes of the serpent.
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. ii. 89. Open your chaps againe.
1620. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, IX. iv. 324. Being euen in the chaps of death.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Epigr. on Blanch. To bind up her chaps when she is dead.
1673. [R. Leigh], Transp. Reh., 39. Supping up his Coffee, and scalding his chaps for hast.
1875. Buckland, Log-Bk., 6. The hounds with blood about their chaps.
3. The side of the external jaw; the cheek.
1708. Mrs. Centlivre, Busie Body, II. ii. She threatned to slap my Chaps, and told me, I was her Servant, not her Governess.
1718. T. Gordon, Cordial Low Spirits, 50. Bury their faces in mighty periwigs, which inviron either chap.
1845. Hood, Last Man, iii. The very sight of his broken orts Made a work in his wrinkled chaps.
1863. B. Taylor, H. Thurston, iii. 40. A coarse, obese man, with heavy chaps.
b. The lower half of the cheek of the pig or other animal as an article of food, as in pickled Bath chaps.
1870. Daily News, 19 April, 6/6. The feast was chaps and eggs.
4. The lower jaw.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric., II. 91. The chap should be fine, indicating a disposition to feed.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 238/2. The ‘chap’ or under jaw, is clean, or free from flesh.
† 5. pl. The fauces of Snapdragon and allied plants.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxii. 314. The chaps [of Toadflax] are orange-coloured.
† 6. pl. Mech. The ‘jaws’ or ‘cheeks’ of a vice or other tool, etc., which fit together and hold something firmly between them; the jaws of the futchells in a carriage, etc. Obs.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 3. Tongs, to be used for … such thicker work, as will be held within the Returns of their Chaps.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 321/2. The Chaps … of a Vice … are cut rough.
1794. W. Felton, Carriages (1801), I. 50. The futchels are contracted in the front to receive the pole, which part of the futchels is called the Chaps.
1799. Naval Chron., II. 238. Nail up a new pair of chaps on the fore part of the pump for a new handle to be fixed in.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 201. Pinched when red hot between the chaps of a vice.
7. Chaps of the Channel: see CHOP sb.
1720. Lond. Gaz., No. 5813/3. Ships in the Chaps of the Channel.
8. Comb., as chap-band, -choke; CHAP-FALLEN a.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., I. ii. (1668), 24. Put upon his [a horse’s] Head a gentle Cavezan … with a chap-band underneath.
1607. Middleton, Five Gall., III. v. Thou shalt straight to Bridewell—Sweet master! Live upon bread and water and chap-choke.
