cham

See also: Cham, ćham, chấm, châm, Châm, chậm, and Cham.

Contents

English

Etymology 1

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kæm/

Noun

cham (plural chams)

1. Archaic spelling of khan.
   • 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: "Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro’ the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four." — Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon
   • 2007: The Tonsons […] would publish Johnson's Shakespeare only by subscription, obliging the Great Cham to sell copies well ahead of publication — Michael Dobson, ‘For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen’, London Review of Books 29:9, p. 3

Etymology 2

See chap.

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 [...]

Etymology 3

From ch- +‎ am, from ich + am.

Contraction

cham

1. (West Country, obsolete) I am

References

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

Anagrams

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

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Antillean Creole

Etymology

From French charme.

Noun

cham

1. potion

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French

Etymology 1

From Vietnamese Chăm, from Eastern Cham Cam.

Adjective

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

1. Cham

Etymology 2

From Turkish han (“khan”).

Noun

cham m (plural chams)

1. khan

Further reading

• “cham” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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Irish

Pronunciation

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

Adjective

cham

1. Lenited form of cam.

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
cam	cham	gcam
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

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Macanese

Etymology

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

Noun

cham (plural cham-cham)

1. soil
2. ground

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

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Middle English

Etymology

See ch-.

Verb

cham

1. I am

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Old Irish

Adjective

cham

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

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Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xam/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

cham m pers

1. (derogatory) an arrogant, ill-mannered person

   Synonyms: prostak, prymityw

2. (archaic) peasant; countryman; person of low birth

   Synonym: wieśniak

Declension

declension of cham

	singular	plural
nominative	cham	chamy
genitive	chama	chamów
dative	chamowi	chamom
accusative	chama	chamów/chamy
instrumental	chamem	chamami
locative	chamie	chamach
vocative	chamie	chamy

Further reading

• cham in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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Portuguese

Noun

cham m (plural chãos)

1. Obsolete spelling of chão

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Scottish Gaelic

Adjective

cham

1. Lenited form of cam.

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical	Lenition
cam	cham
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

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Tzotzil

Verb

cham

1. (intransitive) to die

   Icham. ― He/she died.

   Mu me jk'an xicham.

   I do not want to die.

   Synonyms: chʼay, chʼay ikʼ, laj, olan

References

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