Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CHANGE'FUL, a.

Full of change; inconstant; mutable; fickle; uncertain; subject to alteration. – Pope.

CHANGE'LESS, a.

Constant; not admitting alteration.

CHANGE'LING, n. [change and ling. It is said this word originated in a superstitious opinion that fairies steal children and put others that are ugly and stupid in their places. Johnson.]

1. A child left or taken in the place of another. – Spenser.
2. An idiot; a fool. – Dryden. Locke.
3. One apt to change; a waverer. – Shak.
4. Any thing changed and put in the place of another. – Shak.

CHANG'ER, n.

1. One who alters the form of any thing.
2. One that is employed in changing and discounting money; a money-changer.
3. One given to change.

CHANG'ING, ppr.

Altering; turning; putting one thing for another; shifting.

CHAN'NA, n.

A fish taken in the Mediterranean, resembling the sea-perch. – Dict. of Nat. Hist.

CHAN'NEL, n. [Ir. cainneal; Fr. canal; L. canalis; Arm. can, or canol. It is a different spelling of canal.]

1. In a general sense, a passage; a place of passing or flowing; particularly, a water-course.
2. The place where a river flows, including the whole breadth of the river. But more appropriately, the deeper part or hollow in which the principal current flows.
3. The deeper part of a strait, bay, or harbor, where the principal current flows, either of tide or fresh water, or which is the most convenient for the track of a ship.
4. That through which any thing passes; means of passing, conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to us by different channels.
5. A gutter or furrow in a column.
6. An arm of the sea; strait or narrow sea, between two continents, or between a continent and an isle; as the British or Irish channel.
7. Channels of a ship. [See Chain-wales.]

CHAN'NEL, v.t.

To form a channel; to cut channels in; to groove; as, to channel a field or a column. – Wotton.

CHAN'NEL-ED, pp.

Having channels; grooved longitudinally.

CHAN'NEL-ING, ppr.

Cutting channels; grooving longitudinally.

CHAN'SON, n. [Fr.]

A song. – Shak.

CHANT, n.

Song; melody; church-service.

CHANT, v.i.

1. To sing; to make melody with the voice. They chant to the sound of the viol. – Amos vi.
2. To repeat words in the church service with a kind of singing.

CHANT, v.t. [Fr. chanter; L. canto, cantus; W. açanu; Arm. cana, cannein; It. cantare; Sp. and Port. cantar; L. cano. See Cant.]

1. To sing; to utter a melodious voice; that is, to cant or throw the voice in modulations. The cheerful birds do chant sweet music. – Spenser.
2. To celebrate in song; as, to chant the praises of Jehovah.
3. To sing, as in church service; to repeat words in a kind of canting voice or talking style, between air and recitative.

CHANT'ED, pp.

Sung; uttered with modulations of voice.

CHANT'ER, n.

1. One who chants; a singer or songster. – Pope.
2. The chief singer, or priest of the chantry. – Gregory.
3. The pipe which sounds the tenor or treble in a bag-pipe.

CHANT'I-CLEER, n. [chant and clear, Fr. clair.]

A cock, so called from the clearness or loudness of his voice in crowing. – Dryden.

CHANT'ING, n.

The act of singing or uttering with a song.

CHANT'ING, ppr.

Singing; uttering a melodious voice; repeating words with a singing voice.

CHANT'RESS, n.

A female singer. – Milton.

CHANT'RY, n. [Fr. chantrerie, from chant.]

A church or chapel endowed with lands, or other revenue, for the maintenance of one or more priests daily to sing or say mass for the souls of the donors, or such as they appoint. – Cowel.

CHA-OL'O-GY, n.

A treatise on chaos, or chaotic matter.

CHA'OS, n. [L. chaos; Gr. χαος.]

1. That confusion, or confused mass, in which matter is supposed to have existed, before it was separated into its different kinds and reduced to order, by the creating power of God: “Rudis indigestaque moles.” – Ovid.
2. Any mixed mass, without due form or order; as, a chaos of materials.
3. Confusion; disorder; a state in which the parts are undistinguished. Donne.

CHA-OT'IC, a.

Resembling chaos; confused; as, the earth was originally in a chaotic state.

CHAP, n.¹

A longitudinal cleft, gap or chink, as in the surface of the earth, or in the hands or feet.