Definition of "chaw"

chaw¹

/t͡ʃɔ/

noun
plural chaws
1. (informal, uncountable) Chewing tobacco.
2. (countable) That which is chewed, especially a plug or wad of chewing tobacco.
  Quotations
  "YOU give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back intrust, nuther."
  1889, Mark Twain, chapter 21, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  He […] went into the store and behind the counter and reached up and got the plug of chewing tobacco and unwrapped it and bit off a chaw.
  1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug
verb
third-person singular simple present chaws, present participle chawing, simple past and past participle chawed
1. (archaic or nonstandard outside dialects, e.g. Appalachia, Southern US) To chew; grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud).
  Quotations
  The trampling steede, with gold and purple trapt, / Chawing the fomie bit, there fercely stood.
  c. 1540, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Translations from the Æneid, Book 4, in The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1920, page 130
  And next to him malicious Envy rode,Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chawBetweene his cankred teeth a venemous tode […]
  2006, Hackett (Indianapolis) edition of Edmund Spenser's “Book I, Canto IV” of The Faerie Queene, page 62
  The Man who laugh'd but once, to see an AssMumbling to make the cross-grained Thistles pass,Might laugh again, to see a Jury chawThe prickles of unpalatable Law.
  1682, John Dryden, The Medall. A Satyre against Sedition‎, lines 145–8
  […] the king he set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something […]
  1884, Mark Twain, chapter 29, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  Anne passed the lily. Beyond was the bed of pinks—white, clove, cinnamon. […] Anne's scissors chawed the wiry stems almost as sapless as the everlastings.
  1942, Emily Carr, “The Orange Lily”, in The Book of Small
2. (obsolete, transitive) To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider
  Quotations
  "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;
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, page 29
3. (UK, slang) To steal.

chaw²

/t͡ʃɔ/

noun
plural chaws
1. (obsolete) The jaw.
  Quotations
  all the poison ran about his chaw
  2006, Hackett (Indianapolis) edition of Edmund Spenser's “Book I, Canto IV” of The Faerie Queene, page 62

Definition of "chaw"

chaw1

noun

Quotations

verb

Quotations

Quotations

chaw2

noun

Quotations

chaw¹

chaw²