Obs. or dial. Also 7 chawne, choane, chone, chaun. [Identical in meaning with CHINE sb.1, and perh. a deriv. of CHINE v.1, of which the pa. t. was in OE. cán, ME. chane, chone; but the form-history is by no means clear.]
A gap, cleft, chink, rift, fissure; a chine.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 37. In one place the walls of cities are laid along: in another they be swallowed vp in a deepe and wide chawne. Ibid. (1609), Amm. Marcell., XVII. vii. 89. The earth waxing drie … openeth very great chinkes and wide chawnes.
1611. Cotgr., Fendasse, a cleft, rift, chop, choane.
1627. T. Jackson, Chr. Obed., iii. Wks. 1844, XII. 244. An earthquake … made a chaun or rift in the roof of the temple.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 82/1. An Adams Apple [hath] some rifts, chaps, or chones thereon.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lii. I was … plagu’d with Chaps, Chawns and Piles at the Fundament.
1799. Rev. F. Leighton [Shrewsbury], MS. Lett. to Rev. J. Boucher, 26 Feb. Shropshire word chone, meaning a chap, gap, or cut in the flesh of the fingers, from excessive cold.
