chalk

American  

[chawk] / tʃɔk /

noun

• chalks
  plural

1. a soft, white, powdery limestone consisting chiefly of fossil shells of foraminifers.

2. a prepared piece of chalk or chalklike substance for marking, as for writing on a blackboard.

3. a mark made with chalk.

4. a score or tally.

5. Sports Slang. the competitor considered most likely to win by the oddsmakers; favorite.

   If you don’t know anything about either team, just bet the chalk.

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verb (used with object)

1. to mark or write with chalk.

2. to rub over or whiten with chalk.

3. to treat or mix with chalk.

   to chalk a billiard cue.

4. to make pale; blanch.

   Terror chalked her face.

verb (used without object)

1. (of paint) to powder from weathering.

adjective

1. of, made of, or drawn with chalk.

verb phrase

1. chalk up

   1. to score or earn.

      They chalked up two runs in the first inning.

   2. to charge or ascribe to.

      It was a poor performance, but may be chalked up to lack of practice.

chalk British  

/ tʃɔːk /

noun

1. a soft fine-grained white sedimentary rock consisting of nearly pure calcium carbonate, containing minute fossil fragments of marine organisms, usually without a cementing material

2. a piece of chalk or a substance like chalk, often coloured, used for writing and drawing on a blackboard

3. a line, mark, etc made with chalk

4. billiards snooker a small cube of prepared chalk or similar substance for rubbing the tip of a cue

5. a score, tally, or record

6. informal totally different in essentials

7. informal by far

8. to be unable to judge or appreciate important differences

9. informal by no means; not possibly

10. (modifier) made of chalk

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verb

1. to draw or mark (something) with chalk

2. (tr) to mark, rub, or whiten with or as if with chalk

3. (intr) (of paint) to become chalky; powder

4. (tr) to spread chalk on (land) as a fertilizer

chalk Scientific  

/ chôk /

1. A soft, white, gray, or yellow limestone consisting mainly of calcium carbonate and formed primarily from the accumulation of fossil microorganisms such as foraminifera and calcareous algae. Chalk is used in making lime, cement, and fertilizers, and as a whitening pigment in ceramics, paints, and cosmetics. The chalk used in classrooms is usually artificial.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• chalkiness
  noun
• chalklike
  adjective
• chalky
  adjective
• unchalked
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• chalks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of chalk

First recorded before 900; Middle English chalk, schalk, calk, Old English cealc “plaster, cement”; cognate with Old Saxon calc, Dutch kalk, German Kalch, Kalk, from Latin calc- (stem of calx ) “lime, limestone, quicklime,” from Greek chálix “small stone, rubble, gravel, mortar”

Explanation

Chalk is a very soft kind of rock or limestone. While chalk is made of shells and the skeletons of sea creatures, it's usually found above sea level in pits or quarries. Chalk is made of the element calcium carbonite, and it has agricultural uses, as well as showing up (in tiny amounts) in both toothpaste and antacids. The kind of chalk that you use for writing on a blackboard or decorating the sidewalk was originally made from calcium carbonite, but modern writing chalk is more often made of gypsum, a related form of calcium. Chalk comes from the Latin calx, "limestone," with the Greek root khalix, "small pebble."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

chalk chalks

They chalk it up to marketing wrapped in false alarmism.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

If you want to be cynical you could chalk it up to coincidence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

"For Yabloko. For freedom" was scribbled in chalk on the pavement outside the courthouse.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

But to turn the other cheek at this point, or even to chalk these changes up to healthful new habits, would be to ignore the obvious.

From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026

And there, sure enough, a brand-new piece of chalk was hovering near the grey-black writing surface of the blackboard.

From "Matilda" by Roald Dahl

It chalks up another $1.6 trillion to its connectivity business.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026

Jenny Voisard, media and website manager for Friends of Big Bear Valley, chalks it up partly to Jackie’s and Shadow’s highly individual personalities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2026

Put it this way, if Puka Nacua chalks up 225 receiving yards again, the Rams will win.

From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2026

Jerry chalks his stubbornness up to his Norwegian heritage, and I tell him that as someone with Norwegian-German roots myself, I know where he’s coming from.

From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2025

It’s weak, but he chalks it up to adrenaline.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

Related Words

• address
• compose
• create
• draft
• note
• pen
• print
• record
• rewrite
• scrawl
• scribble
• sign
• tell