chaw

Etymology

From earlier chawe (“jaw”). More at jaw. See also chew.

noun

1. (informal, uncountable) Chewing tobacco.
   When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth.
2. (countable) A plug or wad of chewing tobacco.
   "YOU give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back intrust, nuther." 1889, Mark Twain, chapter 21, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
   He […] went into the store and behind the counter and reached up and got the plug of chewing tobacco and unwrapped it and bit off a chaw. 1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug
3. (obsolete) The jaw.
   Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006, p. 62, all the poison ran about his chaw

verb

1. (archaic or nonstandard outside dialects, e.g. Appalachia, Southern US) To chew; to grind with one's teeth; to masticate (food, or the cud)
   c. 1540, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Translations from the Æneid, Book 4, in The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1920, p. 130, The trampling steede, with gold and purple trapt, Chawing the fomie bit, there fercely stood.
   Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006, p. 62, And next to him malicious Envy rode, Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw Betweene his cankred teeth a venemous tode […]
   The Man who laugh'd but once, to see an Ass Mumbling to make the cross-grained Thistles pass, Might laugh again, to see a Jury chaw 1682, John Dryden, The Medall. A Satyre against Sedition, lines 145–8
   […] the king he set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something […] 1884, Mark Twain, chapter 29, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
2. (obsolete, transitive) To ruminate (about) in thought; to ponder; to consider
   , Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006, p. 62, "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;
3. (UK, slang) To steal.
   Some pikey's chawed my bike.