▪ I. chat, n.1
(tʃæt)
Forms: 6 chatte, 6–7 chatt, (7 chate), 6– chat.
[f. chat v.]
† 1. Chatter; idle or frivolous talk; prating, prattle, small talk. Obs.
| c 1530 More Answ. Frith Wks. 835/2 Yet shall shee finde chatte ynough for all an whole yere. 1610 Shakes. Temp. ii. i. 266 A Chough of as deepe chat. 1616 R. C. Times' Whis. iii. 992 They will prate Till they tire all men with their idle chatt. 1660 Milton Griffith's Serm. Wks. (1851) 394 The rest of his Preachment is meer groundless Chat. 1668 Glanvill Plus Ultra 92 No more to be regarded than the little chat of Ideots and Children. 1713 Swift Cadenus & V. Wks. 1755 III. ii. 13 Scarce list'ning to their idle chat. 1768 Burke Corr. (1844) I. 162, I have plagued you a good deal with political chat. |
2. Familiar and easy talk or conversation. † to hold one chat, with chat, in chat: to keep one engaged in talk (obs.).
| 1573 G. Harvey Letter-bk. (1884) 134 Insteade of drye studdy fall to gentle chatt. 1584 Peele Arraignm. Paris ii. i, She was a help to Jove, And held me chat, while he might court his love. 1588 Greene Pandosto (1843) 32 Thus he held her a long while with chat. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. ii. i. 163 Oh how I long to haue some chat with her. 1629 Ford Lover's Mel. ii. i, I'll keep the old man in chat, whilst thou gabblest to the girl. 1655 Theophania 171 Wits, who..can hold up a chat. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 92. ¶4 The Chat I had to Day at White's about Fame and Scandal. 1719 De Foe Crusoe (1869) 241 Holding them in a Chat till they came to the Ship's side. 1798 Southey Ballads, Cross Roads 7 It would..only spoil our chat. 1832 Lytton E. Aram i. ii, Two old gossips..in familiar chat with the landlady. 1836 L. Hunt Bodryddan 81 Poems (1860) 298 In magic talk, which men call ‘chat’. 1870 E. Peacock Ralf Skirl II. 131 A chat about old times. |
3. colloq. The thing under discussion, the question.
| 1862 Trollope Orley F. vi. 39 Has the gentleman any right to be in this room at all, or has he not? Is he commercial, or is he—miscellaneous? That's the chat, as I take it. |
4. dial. Impertinent talk, impudence.
| Mod. Sc. ‘Give us none of your chat’. |
5. Comb. chat show = talk show s.v. talk n. 7.
| 1969 TV Times 16 Oct. 4/4 Like a lot of women—and men I guess—in New York I thought I'd reached chat-show saturation point, but Frost made me think again. 1972 Times 23 Sept. 10/1 The apotheosis of the chat show arrives tonight when Muggeridge guests for Parkinson. 1984 K. Amis Stanley & Women ii. 89 If he ever got tired of editing he could have walked into a job as a chat-show host on any of the TV channels. |
Add: [5.] chat line [*line n.2 1 e (iii)], a telephone or electronic mail service which enables subscribers to exchange casual conversation, either individually or by means of a conference line, with other subscribers or with employees of the service.
| 1984 InfoWorld 26 Mar. 103/3 CompuServe once seemed mainly to target the home user with its on-line games and *chat lines, but now offers many of the same business services available on The Source. 1987 Advertising Age 14 Sept. 92/2 Minitel didn't really boom until the 1981 introduction of chat lines that allow Minitel users to converse with one another directly. 1991 Independent on Sunday 24 Mar. 25/7 Yesterday there were 20 [advertisements] promoting pornographic ‘chat lines’ in which one is, for instance, invited to ‘talk dirty’. 1992 Economist 11 Apr. 25/4 Oftel, the telecommunications watchdog, pulled the plug on telephone chatlines. The chatline operators had failed to come up with {pstlg}600,000 ($1m) demanded by Oftel, to compensate desperate parents whose offspring ran up gigantic bills. |
▸ Computing and Telecomm. A facility for the online exchange of messages in real time by two or more simultaneous users of a computer network (esp. the Internet) whereby text keyed by one participant appears immediately on the monitors of all. Also: (an instance of) this form of online communication. Freq. attrib. Earliest in chat line n. at Additions; see also chat room n. at Additions.
| 1985 Today's Computers Mar. 26/3 Chat, a mode [of computers connected as a Local Area Network] in which two or more users may type messages on each other's terminals, enabling back-and-forth conversations through the network without waiting for electronic mail to be sent and received. 1992 Portable Computing 1 i. 53/1 The newest packages..also have a chat feature so users can exchange remarks online. 1994 CompuServe Mag. Mar. 16/1 ‘Adult-oriented’ games and CD-ROMs; steamy online ‘chats’; people discussing their sex lives and wanton desires with strangers in online forums. 1996 Cosmopolitan (U.K. ed.) Sept. 87/1 Since I splashed out on a computer and discovered the ‘chat forums’, I haven't even glanced at my TV. |
▸ chat room n. Computing and Telecomm. an online messaging facility (esp. an Internet site) dedicated to real-time exchanges, usually on a particular topic; a notional space occupied by two or more participants in an online chat service.
| 1989 T.H.E. Jrnl. (Nexis) Feb. 68 BBS ‘*chat rooms’, which allow up to 23 people to converse in real time, will be regularly used. 1996 N.Y. Daily News (Electronic ed.) 29 Dec. He knew the pair became acquainted in the chat room, an independent site on the World Wide Web devoted to a vampire fantasy role-playing game. 2000 Guardian (Electronic ed.) 10 Feb. Whenever you enter a live chat room for the first time..it's hard not to be momentarily transfixed by the torrent of text messages rushing down your screen. |
▪ II. chat, n.2
(tʃæt)
[f. chat v., in reference to the character of their voice.]
A name applied to several birds, chiefly Sylviadæ or Warblers: viz. to the species of Saxicola, the Furze-chat or Whin-chat, Stone-chat, and Wheat-ear; also to the Hay-chat or Nettle-creeper, and Sedge Warbler; b. in N. America, to other birds, e.g. the Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria polyglotta) and Long-tailed Chat (I. longicauda).
| 1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1729) III. i. 403 The Chatt has a black Tail with white Tips. 1708 W. King Cookery (1807) 148 The chats come to us in April and breed and about Autumn return to Afrik. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. I. 209 Yellow Breasted Chat, Garrulus Australis. 1829 E. Jesse Jrnl. Nat. 405 Chats, larks, and grey wagtails. 1868 Wood Homes without H. xxviii. 543 The Whitethroat..sometimes called the Hay chat and Nettle-creeper. 1879 Jefferies Wild Life in S.C. 50 The chats, who perch on the furze or on the heaps of flints. |
▪ III. chat, n.3 Obs. or dial.
(tʃæt)
Also 5–6 chatte.
[a. F. chats barren flowers of walnut, hazel, willows, etc., lit. ‘cats’, from their downy appearance; cf. the equivalent F. chatons kittens, Du. katteken, Eng. catkin. Sense 2 (if related) is perhaps a loose popular extension of the word.]
1. A name given to the catkin, inflorescence, or seed of various plants: a. The downy catkin of the willow, pine, oak, hazel, etc. Obs. or dial.
| c 1400 Mandeville xv. 168 The long Peper..is lyche the Chattes of Haselle, that comethe before the Lef, and it hangeth lowe. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 460 The Oke called Robur, bringeth forth likewise a certaine pendant chat or catkin. 1875 Lanc. Gloss., Chats, the catkins of trees. |
† b. The spikes or spikelets of grasses, carices, and the like. Obs.
| 1601 Holland Plin. xviii. vii, Panick..is found with a tuft or bunch, from which depend certain small clustered chats or panicles. Ibid. II. 3 It commeth from a certaine fennie reed growing in marishes, I meane the tender muchets or chats thereof. Ibid. II. 557 Certaine chats or catkins which grow vpon many reeds and canes. |
† c. The ‘key’ or samaroid seed of the ash, sycamore, and other trees. Obs.
| 1562 W. Bullein Bk. Simples 30 a, And the coddes did grow upon clusters, like the chattes or kaies of Ashe trees. 1615 Lawson Orch. & Gard. iii. vi. (1668) 13 Ashes, Round-trees, Burt-trees, and such like, carried in the chat, or berry, by the birds into stone walls. 1691 Ray N.C. Words 14 Chats, Keys of Trees, as Ashchats, Sycomore Chats, etc. |
d. The scaly cone (strobilus) of alder, pine, etc.
| 1697 Phil. Trans. XIX. 374 I observed about Mid-August, the Chats of the Alder to be Gummy. 1864 Atkinson Whitby Gloss., Chats, the cones of the fir-tree. |
2. A small branch or twig, such as is used for kindling a fire. Also chat-wood. dial.
| [1631 R. H. Arraignm. Whole Creature xii. §4. 128 Their boles and boughes, their buds and chats, their leaves and flowers, sprouting upwards.] 1670 Ray Prov. 42 Love of lads and fire of chats is soon in and soon out. [1670 E. Tonge in Phil. Trans. V. 1165 And in what forwardness their Buds and Leaves, or Chats were then shot, or broken.] 1721–1800 Bailey, Chat-wood, little sticks fit for fuel. 1794 in Ann. Reg. 361 Even the spray-wood, here called chats..might be made into fagots. 1879 G. F. Jackson Shropsh. Word-bk., Chats, small branches or twigs used for firing. ‘Dick, run an' fatch tuthree dry chats to put i' the oven’. |
▪ IV. chat, n.4 dial.
A small poor potato.
| 1840 Hood Up Rhine 198 Buy inferior weak chats, and rye bread. Ibid. xviii, Potatoes small and waxy, such as we should call chats in England. 1875 Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Chat (Mid. and E. Lanc.), a small potato. 1877 E. Peacock N.-W. Linc. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Chats, small and diseased potatoes, unfit for market. |
▪ V. chat, n.5 Mining.
Ore with a portion of the matrix adhering to it, forming the second portion or stratum of a mass of ore in the process of washing.
| 1876 Mid.-Yorksh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Chat, ore and stone together, Nidd. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Chats, Northumb., Small pieces of stone with ore. |
b. Comb. chat-mill, -roller, a special mill or roller through which the ‘chats’ have to go, the product being known as chat-ore or ‘seconds’.
▪ VI. † chat, n.6 Obs.
[Aphetic f. achat.]
= cate.
| 1584 B. R. tr. Herodotus 43 The greatest part of theyr provision consisting in choise chats and junkettinge dishes. |
▪ VII. chat, n.7 Thieves' Cant.
A louse.
| 1690 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Chatts, lice. 1725 in New Cant. Dict. 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Chats, lice. |
▪ VIII. chat, v.1
(tʃæt)
Forms: 5–6 chatt(e, 6 chate, 5– chat.
[app. an onomatopœic abbreviation of chatter, which has lost the frequentative, and to some extent the depreciative, force of that word.]
† 1. intr. To talk idly and foolishly; to prate, babble, chatter. Obs.
| c 1440 York Myst. xxxiii. 3, I charge ȝou as ȝour chiftan þat ȝe chatt for no chaunce. 1483 Cath. Angl. 60 To Chatte, garrulare. 1494 Fabyan vii. 294 Thoughe I shulde all day tell Or chat with my ryme dogerell. 1526 Skelton Magnyf. 1451 What nede you with hym thus prate & chat? 1580 Baret Alv. C 381 To chat like a pie or lyke a birde in a cage. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. iii. ii. 123. 1611 Cotgr., Babillarde, a title-tatle..a chatting or chattering Minx. 1617 Janua Ling. 18 Admit not thy wife to thy secrets; for she will vndoe you both by chatting. |
2. trans. To chatter, prate, or prattle (a thing); to utter familiarly; to talk in a gossiping way.
| 1483 Vulg. abs Terentio 30 a, While she lyueth she may chatt [obganniat] it at hys eere. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. I. 12/2 A woman..possessed with a babling spirit, that could have chatted any language saving the Irish. 1583 Stanyhurst Aeneis ii. (Arb.) 46 To what purpose do I chat such ianglerye trimtrams? 1659 Heylin Animadv. in Fuller Appeal (1840) 399 Bent to learn this language, for fear they should not chat it handsomely when they came to heaven. a 1745 Swift Wks. 1841 II. 86 To chat their scandal over an infusion of sage. 1888 Mrs. H. Ward R. Elsmere xliii, The other men stood chatting politics and the latest news. |
3. intr. To talk in a light and informal manner; to converse familiarly and pleasantly.
| 1556 Robinson tr. More's Utopia (Arb.) 22, I muste commen with my wife, chatte with my children, and talke wyth my seruantes. 1573 G. Harvey Letter-bk. (1884) 51 Matter for them and others to chat of. 1590 Shakes. Com. Err. ii. ii. 27. 1629 Milton Ode Nativity 87 The shepherds on the lawn..Sat simply chatting in a rustic row. 1740 West Let. in Gray's Poems (1775) 98 They can chat about trifles. 1814 Jane Austen Lady Susan xxiii. (1879) 255 After chatting on indifferent subjects. 1870 E. Peacock Ralf Skirl. III. 245 Lord and Lady Burworth, and the Squire, were chatting by the fire. |
† 4. trans. To speak familiarly of, talk of, tell as gossip. Obs.
| a 1593 H. Smith Wks. 1867 II. 406 She began to chat the same amongst her gossips. 1596 W. Smith Chloris (1877) 11 When to my flocke my daily woes I chate. 1607 Shakes. Cor. ii. i. 224 Your pratling Nurse Into a rapture lets her Baby crie, While she chats him [Coriolanus]. |
5. To address, talk to (a person); to advise; to approach or address tentatively; to flirt with. Also with up. colloq.
| 1898 Eng. Dial. Dict., Chat, to flirt with. Londonderry. 1906 E. Dyson Fact'ry 'Ands x. 132 I want ter chat yeh. 1916 C. J. Dennis Songs of Sentimental Bloke 19, I tried to chat 'er, like you'd make a start Wiv any tart. c 1926 ‘Mixer’ Transport Workers’ Song Bk. (N.Z.) 69 He drinks with a bloke and chats him. 1936 J. Curtis Gilt Kid 50 She had earned it too the way he had chatted her. 1959 Streetwalker i. 10 Big Barbara is chatting a geezer, though the stream of polished professional patter she is directing at him warrants a less terse description. 1963 Daily Mail 22 Jan. 6/3 If you try to chat up a girl and she gives you the heavy fish it means she's ignored your advances. 1963 L. Deighton Horse under Water vii. 34, I was chatting her up the other day. 1963 Sunday Express 10 Mar. 22/7 He saw a pretty girl..smiling at him. He smiled right back. ‘I like chatting the birds,’ he said. 1966 K. Amis Anti-Death League 330, I must have spent a bit of time chatting them up. |
▪ IX. † chat, v.2 Obs. Sc.
Generally referred to chate n., and explained as ‘Hang’: but this is quite uncertain.
| 1513 Douglas æneis viii. Prol. 126 Quod I, Churle, ga chat the and chyd with ane vther. a 1550 Christis Kirke Gr. iv, He chereist hir, scho bad gae chat him. |