[a. F. chas, orig. ‘enclosure, enclosed place,’ needle-eye, etc. (= It. casso):—late L. capsum, thorax, hollow of the chest, ‘locus conclusus’; a parallel form to L. capsa, capsus, f. capĕre to take, receive, contain.] General sense: A lengthened hollow, groove or furrow.
† 1. The hollow furrow or ‘gutter’ on a crossbow wherein the arrow lies. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Coulisse d’un arbaleste, the hollow furrow wherein the arrow lyes; we call it, the gutter, or chace (of a crosse-bow).
2. The cavity of a gun barrel; the part of a gun that contains the bore; the part in front of the trunnions (or, sometimes, between the trunnions and the swell of the muzzle).
1647. Nye, Gunnery, I. 47. Every Gunner ought to try his Piece, whether it be not wider in the mouth than the rest of the chase.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., s.v. Ordnance, The whole Cavity or Bore of the Piece is called her Chase.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), I iij b. The chace comprehends the ogee nearest to the second reinforce-ring; the chace-girdle and astragal; and the muzzle and astragal. Ibid., Rr iij b. The shot would … roll out of the chace.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man., Plate (1862), 50.
1860. Tennent, Story Guns (1864), 213.
1876. Daily News, 20 Oct., 3/3. Obtained by enlongating [sic.] the chase or barrel of the gun.
3. A groove made to receive something that lies within or passes through it: e.g., a. A groove cut in the face of a wall, to receive a pipe, etc. b. A trench cut for the reception of drain tiles. c. The curved water-way in which a breast-wheel rotates, so as to confine the water.
1871. Guardian, 4 Jan., 3/2. It would be quite practicable to carry the pipes up in a chase by the side of the kitchen flue, and to place the cistern near the chimney stack.
4. a. Carpentry. ‘A score cut lengthwise for a tenon to be fixed in, as the tenon at the heels of pillars, etc.’ (Weale, Rudim. Navig., 106.)
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 311. These joints should be chased or indented, and such chases filled with lead.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 144. A large pillar … with its … end tenoned into a chase.
b. Shipbuilding. A kind of joint by which the overlapping joint of clinker-built boats gradually passes at the stem and stern into a flush joint as in carvel-built boats; this is done by taking a gradually deepening rabbet out of each edge at the lands.
5. See quot.
1794. J. Clark, Agric. Surv. Heref., 40. Chase, a stone trough used in cider-making, into which apples are thrown, and then crushed by a stone drawn by a horse into a kind of paste, provincially must.
6. Comb., as chase-hooped a., (of a gun) having the chase strengthened by hoops; so chase-hooping; chase-mortice (from 4), ‘a long mortise cut lengthwise in one of a pair of parallel timbers, for the insertion of one end of a transverse timber by making the latter revolve round a centre at the other end, which is fixed in the other parallel timber’ (Gwilt).
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 8 Sept., 6/2. The other 43-ton guns were to be *chase-hooped. Ibid. (1888), 1 June, 4/2. Alterations of designs, modifications of tests, *chase-hooping, &c.
1833. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, II. 251. On the top of these crank shafts are moving crank heads, with a *chase mortice in each.
