chaw
Plural: chaws
Noun
- a wad of something chewable as tobacco
- That which is chewed.
- Chewing tobacco.
- The jaw.
- Obsolete form of cha (“tea”).
Verb
Verb Forms: chawed, chawing, chaws
- To chew food or tobacco thoroughly.
- chew without swallowing
- "chaw tobacco"
- To chew; grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud).
- To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider.
- To steal.
- To be sulky.
Examples
- "I home retourning, fraught with fowle despight, And chawing vengeaunce all the way I went, Soone as my loathed love appeard in sight, With wrathfull hand I slew her innocent;
- He would CHAW on his pen, contemplating the perfect three-letter word.
- Some pikey's chawed my bike.
- When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth.
Origin / Etymology
An unexplained variation of chewen (“to chew”). First attested in the sixteenth century. See chew for more. Cognate with Middle Dutch cauwen ("to chew"; whence Dutch kauwen), obsolete Dutch kauw (“the act of chewing, that which is chewed, chewed mass, wad of tobacco”), Middle Low German kauwen, kauen (“to chew”). Compare also Old English ġecow (“that which is chewed, food”) and *ġeċēaw (“chewing”), whence Middle English icheu (“gnawing, biting”).
Scrabble Score: 12
chaw: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordchaw: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
chaw: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary