cham

From French cham, from Turkish han (“lord, prince”) (borrowed into Arabic, Persian, Mongolian etc.).

• IPA^(key): /kæm/
• Rhymes: -æm

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

See chap.

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 [...]

From Middle English icham, equivalent to ch- +‎ am, from ich + am.

cham

1. (West Country, obsolete) I am

• I'm

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

• ACMH, HAMC, HMAC, Mach, Mach., mach.

From French charme.

cham

1. potion

Borrowed from Vietnamese Chăm, from Eastern Cham Cam.

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

1. Cham

cham m (plural chams)

1. Cham (language)

Borrowed from Turkish han (“khan”).

cham m (plural chams)

1. Obsolete form of khan (“khan”).

• “cham” in Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1872–1877.
• “cham”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Munster) IPA^(key): [xaumˠ]
• (Galway) IPA^(key): [xɑːmˠ]
• (Mayo, Ulster) IPA^(key): [xamˠ]

cham

1. Lenited form of cam.

• (modern spelling) chám

From Portuguese chão (“ground”), inherited from Latin plānum (“level ground”).

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃaŋ/, /t͡ʃɐŋ/

cham (plural cham-cham)

1. ground
2. soil

   Fu-fula semea na cham di Hong-Gong ― Flowers picked from the soil of Hong Kong

See ch-.

cham

1. I am

cham

1. Alternative spelling of chamm: lenited form of cam.

From Cham, stemming from the belief that peasants were descended from the Biblical Ham and therefore subject to his eponymous curse.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈxam/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -am
• Syllabification: cham
• Homophone: Cham

cham m pers (female equivalent chamka or chamica)

1. (derogatory) bumpkin, yokel (arrogant, ill-manner person; one who is uncultured and uneducated)

   Synonyms: burak, chamidło, chamisko, prostak, prymityw

2. (archaic, derogatory) countryman, peasant (person of low birth)

   Synonyms: chłop, wieśniak

• cham in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• cham in Polish dictionaries at PWN

cham m (plural chans)

1. Obsolete spelling of chão.

cham

1. Lenited form of cam.

cham

1. (intransitive) to die

   Synonyms: chʼay, chʼay ikʼ, laj, olan

   Icham. ― He/she died.

   Mu me jk'an xicham. ― I do not want to die.^[1]

• Laughlin, Robert M. [et al.] (1988) The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantán, vol. I. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.