Definition of "chaw" in English

noun

1. (countable) That which is chewed.

2. (Appalachia, informal, uncountable) Chewing tobacco.

   • When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth.

verb

1. (archaic or nonstandard outside dialects, e.g. Appalachia, Southern US) To chew; grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud).

   • The trampling steede, with gold and purple trapt,

2. (obsolete, transitive) To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider.

   • "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;

3. (UK, slang) To steal.

   • Some pikey's chawed my bike.

4. (dialectal, intransitive) To be sulky.

noun

1. (obsolete) The jaw.

noun

1. Obsolete form of cha (“tea”).