Definition of "chamois"

When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub – a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills.

1831 October 31, Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, chapter I, in Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (Standard Novels; IX), 3rd edition, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], page 22

[H]e seldom donned his armour, substituted costly damask and silk for his war-worn shamoy doublet, and affected at his advanced time of life more gaiety of attire than his contemporaries remembered as distinguishing his early youth.

1825 June 22, [Walter Scott], chapter XVI, in Tales of the Crusaders. […], volume I (The Betrothed), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., page 317

I took them, breathed on them, polished them with a chamois and hung them on the chandelier.

1926, Louise de Koven Bowen, Growing Up with a City, University of Illinois Press, page 39

Mirrors can be cleaned with warm water and ammonia or vinegar and polished with a chamois.

1984, Cruising World, page 158

Once your paint has been restored, drying your car with a chamois is just about all you have to do to restore the luster.

1989, Popular Mechanics, page 146