Definition of "chap"

chap¹

/t͡ʃæp/

noun
plural chaps
1. (dated outside UK and Australia) A man, a fellow.
  Quotations
  “Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps.”
  1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 194
  A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
  ‘No. I only opened the door a foot and put my head in. The street lamps shine into that room. I could see him. He was all right. Sleeping like a great grampus. Poor, poor chap.’
  1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 20, in The China Governess‎
2. (UK, dialectal) A customer, a buyer.
  Quotations
  If you have Blacks of any kind, brought in of late; Mantoes--Velvet Scarfs--Petticoats--Let it be what it will--I am your Chap--for all my Ladies are very fond of Mourning.
  1728, John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, Act 3
3. (Southern US) A child.

chap²

/t͡ʃæp/

verb
third-person singular simple present chaps, present participle chapping, simple past and past participle chapped
1. (intransitive) Of the skin, to split or flake due to cold weather or dryness.
2. (transitive) To cause to open in slits or chinks; to split; to cause the skin of to crack or become rough.
  Quotations
  Then would unbalanced heat licentious reign, / Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain.
  1712, Richard Blackmore, Creation: A Philosophical Poem
  whose fair face neither the summer's blaze can scorch nor winter's blast chap.
  1591, John Lyly, Endymion
3. (Scotland, Northern England) To strike, knock.
  Quotations
  And then it seems that through the open door there came the chapping of a clock.
  1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
  The door was shut into my class. I had to chap it and then Miss Rankine came and opened it and gived me an angry look […]
  2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 35
noun
plural chaps
1. A cleft, crack, or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the skin.
2. (obsolete) A division; a breach, as in a party.
  Quotations
  Many clefts and chaps in our council board.The spelling has been modernized.
  1655, Thomas Fuller, edited by James Nichols, The Church History of Britain, […], new edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837
3. (Scotland) A blow; a rap.

chap³

/t͡ʃæp/

noun
plural chaps
1. (archaic, often in the plural) The jaw.
  Quotations
  This wide-chapp'd rascal—would thou might'st lie drowning / The washing of ten tides!
  1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
  His chaps were all besmear'd with crimson blood.
  a. 1667, Abraham Cowley, The Song
  He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps.
  c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
2. One of the jaws or cheeks of a vice, etc.

chap⁴

/t͡ʃæp/

noun
plural chaps
1. (Internet slang) Clipping of chapter (“division of a text”).