[An abbreviation of CHAPMAN, which seems to have come into vulgar use in the end of the 16th c.: but it is rare in books, even in the dramatists, before 1700. It was not recognized by Johnson, though in Bailey (1731), in sense 1. With sense 2, cf. the colloquial use of customer = ‘person to have to do with’; also callant = ‘customer, lad.’]
1. A buyer, purchaser, customer. Still dial.
1577. Breton, Toyes Idle Head (Grosart), 55/2 (D.). Those crusty chaps I cannot love, The Diuell doo them shame.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 450, ¶ 6. In hunting after Chaps, and in the exact Knowledge of the State of Markets.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. i. 229. I had a meeting with my Chaps, and … told them what the current Price was in Town for every Species of my Goods.
1731. Bailey (ed. 5), A chap (in commerce), a chapman or customer.
1764. Wilkes, Corr. (1805), II. 66. Perhaps Mrs. Mead would buy … but she would be a hard chap.
1805. Ann. Rev., III. 619. The pedlar has but a faint interest in the good opinion of his chap.
1827. Scott, Two Drovers, ii. Harry Wakefield was lucky enough to find a chap for a part of his drove.
1864. Atkinson, Whitby Gloss., Chap, a dealer, a purchaser. ‘I hae some bacon to sell, can you find me a chap for ’t.’
2. colloq. ‘Customer,’ fellow, lad. (Todd, in 1818, said ‘it usually designates a person of whom a contemptuous opinion is entertained’; but it is now merely familiar and non-dignified, being chiefly applied to a young man.
1716. M. Davies, Dissert. upon Physick, in Athenæ Britann., VI. III. 46. The Names of those Country-Chaps be, Absyrtus, [etc.].
1728. Morgan, Algiers, I. Pref. p. viii. ‘Prithee! returned my scornful, choleric Chap; ‘Don’t compare Me to any of your scoundrel Barbarians!’
c. 1750. J. Nelson, Jrnl. (1810), 92. Another of them [Oxford man] said, ‘These chaps belong to poor Wesley.’
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, let. x. The fishers are wild chaps.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, iii. What sad wild fellows some of the chaps were.
1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Mrs. Hallib., I. xx. You might give a chap a civil answer.
b. humorously applied to a female.
1768. Ross, Helenore, 35 (Jam.). Nought would do But I maun gang, that bonny chap to woo.
