char

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See also: Char, čhâr, Char., and chár

English

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Etymology 1

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Back-formation from charcoal.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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char (third-person singular simple present chars, present participle charring, simple past and past participle charred)

  1. (ergative) To burn something to charcoal; to be burnt to charcoal.
    I charred the wood.
    The wood charred.
  2. (transitive) To burn (something) severely, so as to blacken it.
    The fire charred her down to the bone.
  3. (transitive) To burn (something) slightly or superficially so as to affect colour.
    The chef charred the scallops just right.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Noun

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char (plural chars or char)

  1. A charred substance.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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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.[1]

Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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char (plural chars or char)

  1. Any of the several species of fishes of the genus Salvelinus.
    Among other native delicacies, they give you fresh char.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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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.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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char (plural chars)

  2. (obsolete) A time; a turn or occasion.
  3. (obsolete) A turn of work; a labour or item of business.
  5. An odd job, a chore or piece of housework.
  6. A charlady, a woman employed to do housework; cleaning lady.
    I had to scrub the kitchen today, because the char couldn't come.
    • 1919, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Pictures”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 163:
      But there was nobody at Kig and Kadgit's except the charwoman wiping over the “lino” in the passage. “Nobody here yet, Miss,” said the char.
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 77:
      The rollers wore grooves in the nursery floors and the chars complained of getting splinters in their hands while scrubbing.
Synonyms
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Translations
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Verb

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char (third-person singular simple present chars, present participle charing or charring, simple past and past participle chared or charred)

  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.
    • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty, Norton, published 2005, page 677:
      She explained that she was the commissionaire's wife, who did the charing, and I gave her the order for the coffee.
    • 1897, W. Somerset Maugham, Lisa of Lambeth, chapter 2
      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.
  3. (obsolete) To perform; to do; to finish.
  4. To work or hew (stone, etc.)[2]

Etymology 4

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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char (plural chars)

  1. (computing, programming) A character (text element such as a letter or symbol).
    • 1975 April 23, Computerworld, page 21:
      The unit is an 80-column, 30 char. /sec dot matrix printer which uses a 5 by 7 font.
    • 1997, Cay S Horstmann, Gary Cornell, Core Java 1.1: Fundamentals:
      Chars can be considered as integers if need be without an explicit cast.
    • 1998, John R Hubbard, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Fundamentals of Computing with C++:
      Then since each char occupies one byte, these four bytes represent the three letters 'B', 'y', 'e', and the null character NUL.
    • 2004, Kari Laitinen, A Natural Introduction to Computer Programming 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.
    • 2000, Ken Brownsey, The essence of data structures using C++:
      Thus string variables are pointer variables to chars.
    • 2002, Nell B. Dale, Michael McMillan, Visual Basic .NET: a laboratory course - Page 25
      .NET uses the Unicode character set in which each char constant or variable takes up two bytes (16 bits) of storage.
  2. A character (being involved in the action of a story).
    • 2006, Yzabel, quotee, “The Y Logs”, in Deborah Woehr, editor, 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology: A Collection of Works by Writers Who Blog, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 93:
      In fact, when I somewhat lack inspiration, I tend to convert my characters according to the rules of a game which universe is close enough (I did it for some of the chars in my WIP, taking the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook).
    • 2008 September, Soulhacker, quotee, “Ongoing MMO Wars”, in GameAxis Unwired, number 60, Singapore: SPH Magazines Pte Ltd, →ISSN, page 11:
      WoW exp I feel that it is just a progress from Lv70 to 80 and then back to square one to raid\arena or die expansion. So I don’t see the point of going back just to level my char to 80 and let them idle at end-game.
    • 2020, Svitlana Klötzl, Birgit Swoboda, Interpersonal Positioning in English as a Lingua Franca Interactions‎[1], New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, →ISBN:
      The class (an adventuring style (e.g. mage, warrior, hunter, etc.) of the character, which determines abilities, weapons, etc.) choice often also influences the gaming and language of a character during role-playing. As one of the participants states: / Character bound politeness is part of some of my chars – as well as impoliteness is. An example: A Paladin or Priest has to be polite in RPG according to his profession to the light, a Warlock is the opposite as well as rogues etc.
Coordinate terms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 5

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Non-rhotic spelling of cha.

Noun

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char (uncountable)

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

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Wright, L. (1996). Sources of London English: Medieval Thames Vocabulary. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, p. 107
  2. ^ 1845, Oxford Glossary of Architecture

Anagrams

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Atong (India)

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Hindi चार (cār).

Pronunciation

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Numeral

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char (Bengali script চার)

  1. four

Synonyms

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References

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Cebuano

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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  • Hyphenation: char

Interjection

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char

  1. a noncommittal reply to an untrue statement
  2. spoken after something one has said that is untrue or highly ridiculous

Esperanto

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Pronunciation

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Conjunction

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char

  1. H-system spelling of ĉar

Alternative forms

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  1. ĉar
  2. cxar

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French char, from Latin carrus, a loan from Transalpine Gaulish. Doublet of car (“coach”), a borrowing from English.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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char m (plural chars)

  1. chariot, carriage
  2. (parade) float
    Synonym: flotte m or f (Louisiana)
  3. (military) tank
  4. (North America) car, automobile
    Synonyms: automobile m or f, voiture f
  5. (Louisiana) train
    Synonyms: char de chemin de fer m (Louisiana), char de haleine m (Louisiana), char à vapeur m (Louisiana), gros char m (Louisiana), train m
  6. (Louisiana, Missouri) train car, coach
    Synonyms: traîneau m (Louisiana), voiture f

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Irish

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Etymology

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cha +‎ -r

Pronunciation

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Particle

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char (triggers lenition of the following verb)

  1. (Ulster) not
    Char dhún mé é. ― I did not close it.
    Char chuala mé é. ― I did not hear it.

Usage notes

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Used only in some varieties of Ulster Irish. Used only with the past tense of regular verbs and some irregular verbs.

Synonyms

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  • níor (used in Munster Irish, Connacht Irish, and some varieties of Ulster Irish)
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  • cha (used before other tenses)

Middle French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old French char, charn.

Noun

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char f (plural chars)

  1. flesh

Descendants

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  • French: chair

Old French

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From earlier charn, carn, from Latin carnem, accusative singular of carō.

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Noun

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char oblique singular, f (oblique plural chars, nominative singular char, nominative plural chars)

  1. (anatomy) flesh (tissue from an animal in general)
    • 12th Century, Unknown, Raoul de Cambrai:
      Desor l'espaule li fist la char trenchier
      under his shoulder, he cut into his flesh
  2. meat (flesh of an animal intended to be eaten)
Descendants
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Etymology 2

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From Latin carrus.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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char oblique singular, m (oblique plural chars, nominative singular chars, nominative plural char)

  1. cart
Synonyms
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Descendants
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Etymology 3

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Alternative form of quer

Romani

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Noun

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char f (plural chara) Anglicized form of ćar

  1. grass
    Le grast xan char.
    The horses are eating grass.
  2. lawn

Romansch

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Etymology

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From Latin cārus.

Adjective

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char m (feminine singular chara, masculine plural chars, feminine plural charas)

  1. dear

Scottish Gaelic

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Verb

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char

  1. (Wester Ross) independent past of rach

Usage notes

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  • Dialectal form of the usual chaidh.

Tagalog

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Pronunciation

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Interjection

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char (Baybayin spelling ᜆ᜔ᜐᜇ᜔) (colloquial, originally gay slang)

  1. Clipping of charot.

Tarifit

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Moroccan Arabic شهر (šhar).

Noun

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char m (Tifinagh spelling ⵛⵀⴰⵔ, dual chrayn, plural chur or rchura)

  1. month

Welsh

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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char m

  1. aspirate mutation of car (“car”)

Mutation

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Welsh mutation
radical soft nasal aspirate
car gar nghar char
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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