cham

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kæm/
• Rhymes: -æm

Noun

cham (plural chams)

1. Archaic spelling of khan.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:

     And ſince we haue arriu’d in Scythia,
     Beſides rich preſents from the puiſant Cham,
     UUe haue his highneſſe letters to commaund
     Aide and aſſiſtance if we ſtand in need.

   • 1840, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War:

     But Baiothnoi, chief captain of the Tartarian army (for they were not admitted to speak with the great cham himself), cried quits with this friar, outvying him with the greatness and divinity of their cham; and sent back by them a blunt letter […]

2. An autocrat or dominant critic, especially Samuel Johnson.
   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:

     Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro’ the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four.

   • 2007, Michael Dobson, “For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen”, in London Review of Books, volume 29, number 9, page 3:

     The Tonsons […] would publish Johnson's Shakespeare only by subscription, obliging the Great Cham to sell copies well ahead of publication

Verb

cham (third-person singular simple present chams, present participle chamming, simple past and past participle chammed)

1. (obsolete) To chew.
   • 1531, William Tyndale, Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue:

     But he that repenteth toward the law of God, and at the sight of the sacrament, or of the breaking, feeling, eating, chamming, or drinking, calleth to remembrance the death of Christ, his body breaking and blood shedding for our sins [...]

Contraction

cham

1. (West Country, obsolete) I am

References

• Holloway, William (1840) A General Dictionary of Provincialisms, London: John Russell Smith, page 27

Adjective

cham (feminine chame, masculine plural chams, feminine plural chames)

1. Cham

Noun

cham m (plural chams)

1. Cham (language)

Noun

cham m (plural chams)

1. Obsolete form of khan (“khan”).