subs. (common).—1. A countryman; a yokel; a bumpkin. [A contraction of CHAW-BACON (q.v.). In common use at Harrow School.]
1856. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, pt. I., ch. i. There’s nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the veritable CHAW in the White Horse Vale.
2. (vulgar).—A mouthful; a ‘gobbet’; in the mouth at once; e.g., a quid of tobacco; a dram of spirits, etc. [From CHAW, verb, q.v.]
1749. ‘The Humours of the Fleet,’ quoted in J. Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 286.
| And in his nether Jaw | |
| Was stuff’d an elemosynary CHAW. |
1772. Gentleman’s Magazine, XLII., 191. The tars … Took their CHAWS, hitched their trousers, and grinn’d in our faces. [M.]
1833. MARRYAT, Peter Simple, I. xiv. The boy was made to open his mouth, while the CHAW of tobacco was extracted.
1838. GLASCOCK, Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, II., 123. ‘I’m blest if I’m fit for work, ’thout a raw CHAW.’
1864. Daily Telegraph, 26 July. The gentleman have often ‘that within that passeth show,’ to wit, a CHAW of tobacco: this is not very conducive to volubility in conversation.
3. (university).—A trick; device; or ‘sell.’
Verb (vulgar).—1. To eat or chew noisily and roughly. To bite (see quot., 1890). Once literary; now degenerate, and vulgarly applied; specifically ‘to chew tobacco.’
1890. KIPLING, The Oont [Scots Observer].
| We socks him with a stretcher-pole, and ’eads him off in front, | |
| And when we saves his bloomin’ life, he CHAWS our bloomin’ arm. |
2. (university).—To deceive, trick, ‘sell,’ or impose upon one.
TO CHAW OVER, verbal phr. (common).—To create ridicule by repeating one’s words.
TO CHAW UP, phr. (American).—To get the better of; to demolish; ‘do for’; smash or finish. CHAWED UP: utterly done for.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvi., p. 162, ‘Here’s full particulars of the patriotic loco-foco movement yesterday, in which the Whigs was so CHAWED UP.
1862. C. F. BROWNE (‘Artemus Ward’), Artemus Ward: His Book, p. 66. We CHAWED ’em UP, that’s what we did.
TO CHAW UP ONE’S WORDS, phr. (American).—To retract an assertion; ‘to eat one’s words.’
