chav

American  

[chav] / tʃæv /

noun

Chiefly British Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.

1. a young person who wears fashionable sportswear or flashy jewelry but is regarded as badly behaved or as having lower-class taste.

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chav British  

/ tʃæv /

noun

1. informal a young working-class person whose tastes, although sometimes expensive, are considered vulgar by some

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Usage

What does chav mean? Chavs is a UK derogatory slang word for a young hooligan who wears designer clothes and starts fights, usually seen as lower class.

Other Word Forms

• chavish
  adjective
• chavvy
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of chav

First recorded in 1995–2000; perhaps shortening of British slang chavvy “baby, child,” or from Romani chavo “(Romani) boy, youth, unmarried man” or Romani chavi “baby, child,” probably from unrecorded Middle Indic chāva, chāpa “young of an animal,” from Sanskrit śāva

Example Sentences

"Back then I was just known as the Blackpool chav," says Millie Bracewell, perhaps better known as Millie B.

From BBC • Jan. 20, 2023

You, sir, are a slob, a slouch, what the Brits occasionally might call a chav.

From Golf Digest • Feb. 27, 2020

The suburb’s most faithful inhabitant and its uncrowned king is the gopnik, the Russian equivalent of a chav.

From The Guardian • May 28, 2014

But this is not the way to deal with the word chav, Jones says.

From BBC • Jun. 3, 2011

This isn't recent behaviour: the banana tweet was from July, the chav tweet from September, the train tweet from December.

From The Guardian • Apr. 9, 2010