English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From chapel +‎ -er.

Noun edit

chapeler (plural chapelers)

  1. A member of a religious sect in the 18th and 19th centuries that questioned the legitimacy of the priesthood.
    • 1876, Edward Whitaker, “Tempus est Ludendi”, in Parley Magna. A Novel., volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., [], page 57:
      There was but little discord between church and chapel, except at treat-times, and on kindred occasions of exceptional excitement; and every Sunday evening church dames, duly equipped with Rippon’s Selection, an unopened pocket-handkerchief, and a sprig of boy’s love, might be seen marching, like any chapelers, to Zoar.
    • 1902, David Morgan Thomas, Urijah Rees Thomas: His Life and Work, page 108:
      “Do not be annoyed,” writes the editor of The Homilist to his son, “by the idle gossip and stupid prejudice of chapelers. []
    • 1903, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, page 40, column 2:
      “Parson Budd be a tremendous Church-of-Englander, so I heard squire say. He ’ve got his knife into all chapelers an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.”
    • 1985, Fury Never Leaves Us: A Miscellany of Caradoc Evans, Poetry Wales Press, page 58:
      He said he would get his own back on the ‘chapelers,’ and die.
  2. A maker of caps.
    • 1909, Henry Benjamin Wheatley, The Story of London, page 301:
      A marked feature of the old trades of London was the minute subdivisions which took place among them: thus there were hatters, cappers, chapelers (makers of caps) and hurers.