Also 6–9 chapt. [f. CHAP v. and sb.1 + ED.]
1. Fissured; cracked; as clayey ground in summer, or the hands and lips by exposure to frost.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 98. My fyngers ar chappyd.
1549–62. Sternhold & H., Ps. lxv. 9. When that the earth is chapt and dry, and thirsteth more and more.
1611. Bible, Jer. xiv. 4. Because the ground is chapt, for there was no raine in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they couered their heads.
1783. J. C. Smyth, in Med. Commun., I. 205. His hands … were swelled and chapt.
18[?]. Keats, Life (1848), II. 137. Who waits for thee, as the chapp’d earth for rain.
Mod. A cure for chapped lips.
b. slang. Parched, thirsty.
1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 37. Chap’d, Dry, or Thirsty.
1725. in New Cant. Dict.
2. Cut small or short; chopped; beaten small.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 404. The ragged furze; Stretch’d o’er the stony heath, the stubble chapt.
a. 1776. in Herd’s Sc. Songs, II. 79 (Jam.). With chapped kail.
