char

Etymology 1

Back-formation from charcoal.

verb

1. (ergative) To burn something to charcoal.
2. To burn slightly or superficially so as to affect colour.

noun

1. A charred substance.

Etymology 2

Unknown, perhaps from Celtic, such as Irish ceara (“fiery red”) (found in personal names). Or, perhaps borrowed from Middle Low German schar (“flounder, dab”), from Proto-Germanic *skardaz, related to *skeraną (“to cut”), referring to its shape. If so, related to shard.

noun

1. Any of the several species of fishes of the genus Salvelinus.
   Among other native delicacies, they give you fresh char.

Etymology 3

From Middle English cherre (“odd job”), from Old English ċierr (“a turn, change, time, occasion, affair, business”), from ċierran (“to turn, change, turn oneself, go, come, proceed, turn back, return, regard, translate, persuade, convert, be converted, agree to, submit, make to submit, reduce”), from Proto-Germanic *karzijaną (“to turn”), from Proto-Indo-European *gers- (“to bend, turn”). Cognate with Dutch keer (“a time, turn, occasion”), German Kehre (“a turn, bight, bend”) and kehren (“to sweep”) or umkehren (“to return or reverse”), Greek γύρος (gýros, “a bout, whirl”), gyre. More at chore, ajar.

noun

1. (obsolete) A time; a turn or occasion.
2. (obsolete) A turn of work; a labour or item of business.
3. An odd job, a chore or piece of housework.
4. A charlady, a woman employed to do housework; cleaning lady.
   I had to scrub the kitchen today, because the char couldn't come.

verb

1. (obsolete) To turn, especially away or aside.
2. To work, especially to do housework; to work by the day, without being a regularly hired servant.
   She explained that she was the commissionaire's wife, who did the charing, and I gave her the order for the coffee. 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty, Norton, published 2005, page 677
   Her husband had been a soldier, and from a grateful country she received a pension large enough to keep her from starvation, and by charring and doing such odd jobs as she could get she earned a little extra to supply herself with liquor. 1897, W. Somerset Maugham, Lisa of Lambeth, chapter 2
3. (obsolete) To perform; to do; to finish.
4. To work or hew (stone, etc.)

Etymology 4

Abbreviation of character, used as the name of a data type in some programming languages, including notably C.

noun

1. (computing, programming) A character (text element such as a letter or symbol).
   The unit is an 80-column, 30 char. /sec dot matrix printer which uses a 5 by 7 font. 23 April 1975, Computerworld, page 21
   Chars can be considered as integers if need be without an explicit cast. 1997, Cay S Horstmann, Gary Cornell, Core Java 1.1: Fundamentals
   Then since each char occupies one byte, these four bytes represent the three letters 'B', 'y', 'e', and the null character NUL. 1998, John R Hubbard, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Fundamentals of Computing with C++
   When a 32-bit int value is stored to a 16-bit char variable, information can be lost if the 16 most significant bits are not zeroes in the int value. 2004, Kari Laitinen, A Natural Introduction to Computer Programming with C#
   Thus string variables are pointer variables to chars. 2000, Ken Brownsey, The essence of data structures using C++
   .NET uses the Unicode character set in which each char constant or variable takes up two bytes (16 bits) of storage. 2002, Nell B. Dale, Michael McMillan, Visual Basic .NET: a laboratory course - Page 25

Etymology 5

Non-rhotic spelling of cha.

noun

1. (Britain) Alternative form of cha (“tea”)