Meanings
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1
verb
to chew without swallowing
Chaw tobacco.
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2
noun
Chewing tobacco.
When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth.
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3
verb
To chew; grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud).
The trampling steede, with gold and purple trapt,.
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4
verb
To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider.
"I home retourning, fraught with fowle despight, And chawing vengeaunce all the way I went, Soone as my loathed love appeard in sight, With wrathfull hand I slew her innocent;.
Thesaurus
Etymology
From Early Modern English chawe, either a form of Middle English chaul, chavel, jawle, jawe (“jaw”) (whence also English jowl) which has lost the final -l, or from Middle English *chawe, *chowe, from Old English *ċēawe, *ċēowe (“jaw”), or a form of Middle English jowe, jawe (“jaw”). See jowl and jaw for more.