What does chap mean?
Chap has two distinct lives in English. Its best-known sense is informal British usage for a man or boy: calling someone 'a decent chap' or 'an old chap' signals warmth and easy familiarity, with a tone that feels friendly and slightly old-fashioned to modern ears. The word applies only to males and sits comfortably in conversation rather than formal writing. Separately, chap functions as a verb meaning for skin to become cracked, rough, or painful through exposure to cold, wind, or dryness — a sense most familiar today through the adjective 'chapped', as in 'chapped lips' or 'chapped hands'. The noun sense derives from 'chapman', an older English word for a merchant or pedlar, making 'chap' a linguistic relative of 'cheap'; the skin sense developed separately in Middle English. Both senses remain current: one colours social speech, especially in Britain, while the other describes a small but universal winter hardship.
An informal term, chiefly British, for a man or boy; a fellow.
"The landlord was a jolly chap with a story for everyone."
Informal and affectionate; used almost exclusively of males.
(Of skin) To become cracked, rough, or sore through cold, wind, or dryness; sometimes transitively, to cause skin to crack in this way.
"Her lips chapped badly after a week of skiing in the wind."
A crack or sore patch on the skin resulting from exposure to cold or dry conditions.
"He rubbed ointment into the chaps on his knuckles."
The plural 'chaps' most commonly refers to multiple men in the informal sense; note that 'chaps' is also an unrelated American English term for leather leggings worn by cowboys.
"Two elderly chaps were feeding the ducks by the pond."
The friendly 'old chap' you meet in a British novel is a distant cousin of the word 'cheap' — both trace back to an Old English word for trade and bargaining.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of chap
The noun 'chap', meaning a fellow, arose in eighteenth-century Britain as a shortened form of 'chapman', an Old English term for a merchant or pedlar derived from 'cēap', meaning trade or bargain — the same root that gives us the word 'cheap'. The verb 'chap', referring to skin cracking, has separate origins in Middle English, where it meant to split or cause to split. These two strands converged on the same modern form, giving English a homely word for both people and weathered hands.
Related word forms
How chap is actually used
'Chap' as 'man' is informal and distinctly British-flavoured; it carries a mild, often affectionate or slightly quaint connotation rather than a neutral one, and it applies only to males. In American English it sounds dated or deliberately British. The skin-cracking sense is standard in both varieties but usually appears in its participial form 'chapped' (as in chapped lips) more often than as a bare verb.
Easily confused with chap
A chop is a cut of meat or a cutting blow with an axe, whereas a chap is a man (noun) or cracked skin (verb); the two differ in vowel sound and meaning.