a. Also 7 -faln(e. [f. CHAP sb.2 + FALLEN. A common variant is CHOP-FALLEN.]
1. With the chap or lower jaw hanging down, as an effect of extreme exhaustion or debility, of a wound received, or esp. of death.
1598. Gerard, Herbal, I. i. 3. Beasts that be chap-fallen through long standing in pound.
1609. Ev. Woman in Hum., I. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. 307. Her tung … wagges within her chap-faln jawes.
1621. Fletcher, Wild-G. Chase, IV. iii. Till they be chap-fall’n, and their tongues at peace, Nail’d in their coffins.
a. 1809. Mrs. H. Cowley, Bold Stroke, 26. That plump face of yours will be chap-fallen I believe.
1842. Tennyson, Vis. Sin, iv. 110. Trooping from their mouldy dens The chap-fallen circle spreads.
b. Said of the mouth-piece of a helmet.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, X. 212 (J.).
| A Chap-faln beaver loosly hanging by | |
| The cloven Helm, an Arch of Victory. |
2. fig. Dejected, dispirited; crest-fallen.
1608. Day, Hum. out of Br., I. i. (1881), 6. I woulde poure Spirit of life … Into the iawes of chap-falne schollership.
1651. Cleveland, To Mrs. K. T., Poems 16.
| Ask but the Chap-falne Puritan, | |
| ’Tis zeal that tongue-ties that good man. |
1794. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Rights of Kings, Wks. III. 37. But, if his Nymph unfortunately frowns, Sad, chap fall’n, lo! he hangs himself, or drowns!
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, I. iv. (1883), 37. His clerk … stood with staring eyes and open mouth, chap-fallen and terrified.
Hence Chapfallenly adv.
1883. Miss Broughton, Belinda, I. I. vii. 112. ‘You would not like it, of course?’ he says, chapfallenly.
