chalk

[chawk]

See more synonyms for chalk on Thesaurus.com

noun

a soft, white, powdery limestone consisting chiefly of fossil shells of foraminifers.
a prepared piece of chalk or chalklike substance for marking, as a blackboard crayon.
a mark made with chalk.

a score or tally.

verb (used with object)

to mark or write with chalk.
to rub over or whiten with chalk.
to treat or mix with chalk: to chalk a billiard cue.
to make pale; blanch: Terror chalked her face.

verb (used without object)

(of paint) to powder from weathering.

adjective

of, made of, or drawn with chalk.

Verb Phrases

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.

Origin of chalk

before 900; Middle English chalke, Old English cealc < Latin calc- (stem of calx) lime

Related formschalk·like, adjectiveun·chalked, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for chalk

cream, buttermilk, half-and-half, choice, pick, darling, idol, impress, seal, delineate, portray, depict, chart, paint, chalk, bleach, compose, rewrite, create, scrawl

Examples from the Web for chalk

Contemporary Examples of chalk

The Cadet turned suddenly with a surprised look, opened his hand and said ‘a piece of chalk,’ at the same time displaying it.
Stonewall Jackson, VMI’s Most Embattled Professor
S. C. Gwynne
November 29, 2014
Heroin used to come in the same way, either packed in bundles of wax baggies or as chunks resembling sticks of chalk.
This Anti-Heroin Drug Is Now King of the Jailhouse Drug Trade
Daniel Genis
July 17, 2014
Notes were scrawled on a large white board, and “The Internet Association” was written in chalk on a blackboard.
Inside Uber’s Political War Machine
Olivia Nuzzi
June 30, 2014
Submit to his apologia for Murmelstein, or chalk this up to a case of a filmmaker courting controversy?
Confessions of a Death Camp Collaborator: Claude Lanzmann’s ‘The Last of the Unjust’
Jimmy So
February 7, 2014
In a vain attempt at positive self-reinforcement, chalk all this up to maybe having worked out too hard last week.
So You Have an Inconsequential But Awful Illness
Kelly Williams Brown
January 18, 2014

Historical Examples of chalk

The chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with caves.
Yorkshire Painted And Described
Gordon Home
The fascination of writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children.
K
Mary Roberts Rinehart
Where's that piece o' chalk you had when you marked out your tumbler-quilt?
Meadow Grass
Alice Brown
I'll chalk a lane into the closet, an' we'll both keep a right o' way there.
Meadow Grass
Alice Brown
A may bush, overhanging a little precipice of chalk, caught her eye.
The Incomplete Amorist
E. Nesbit

British Dictionary definitions for chalk

chalk

noun

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
a piece of chalk or a substance like chalk, often coloured, used for writing and drawing on a blackboard
a line, mark, etc made with chalk
billiards snooker a small cube of prepared chalk or similar substance for rubbing the tip of a cue
British a score, tally, or record
as alike as chalk and cheese or as different as chalk and cheese informal totally different in essentials
by a long chalk British informal by far
can't tell chalk from cheese or doesn't know chalk from cheese to be unable to judge or appreciate important differences
not by a long chalk British informal by no means; not possibly
(modifier) made of chalk

verb

to draw or mark (something) with chalk
(tr) to mark, rub, or whiten with or as if with chalk
(intr) (of paint) to become chalky; powder
(tr) to spread chalk on (land) as a fertilizer

Word Origin for chalk

Old English cealc, from Latin calx limestone, from Greek khalix pebble

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for chalk

Old English cealc "chalk, lime, plaster; pebble," a West Germanic borrowing from Latin calx (2) "limestone, lime (crushed limestone), small stone," from Greek khalix "small pebble," which many trace to a PIE root for "split, break up." In most Germanic languages still with the "limestone" sense, but in English transferred to the opaque, white, soft limestone found abundantly in the south of the island. Modern spelling is from early 14c. The Latin word for "chalk" was creta, which also is of unknown origin.

1570s, "to mix with chalk;" 1590s as "to mark with chalk," from chalk (n.). Related: Chalked; chalking. Old English had cealcian "to whiten." Certain chalk marks on shipped objects meant "admitted" or "shipped free," hence some figurative senses. Chalk boards also were commonly used in keeping credit, score, etc., hence figurative use of chalk it up (1903).

chalk in Science

chalk

[chôk]

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.