chalk

[ chawk ]

/ tʃɔk /

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,

to score or earn: They chalked up two runs in the first inning.
to charge or ascribe to: It was a poor performance, but may be chalked up to lack of practice.

Nearby words

chaliapin, chalice, chaliced, chalicosis, chalicothere, chalk, chalk and talk, chalk line, chalk out, chalk stripe, chalk talk

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. 2019

Examples from the Web for 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|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST

They were chalk marks on the floor because somebody whacked the erasers.
The Crossword Puzzle Turns 100: The ‘King of Crossword’ on Its Strange History|Kevin Fallon|December 21, 2013|DAILY BEAST
Office-seekers and speech-makers, who do not so much as lay an honest egg, but wear their breasts bare upon an egg of chalk!
A Plea for Captain John Brown|Henry David Thoreau
They are best suited for chalk districts or rocky ones, where they thrive most luxuriantly, and make a very brilliant display.
The Wild Garden|William Robinson
And then he became interested in the men who were working in the chalk pit down below.
The Research Magnificent|H. G. Wells
What money a man might make out of chalk, if he had it in some place ready to sell, and people would buy it!
The Queen's Scarlet|George Manville Fenn
She must have eaten lots of raw coffee and chalk, I'll be bound.
The Day of Wrath|Maurus Jkai

British Dictionary definitions for chalk

chalk

/ (tʃɔːk) /

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 (1 of 2)

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.

Word Origin and History for chalk (1 of 2)

chalk

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).

Science definitions for chalk

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.

chalk