"cham" definition, meaning, and origin

Contraction

From Middle English icham, equivalent to ch- + am, from ich + am.

Archaic spelling of khan.
- And ſince we haue arriu’d in Scythia, Beſides rich preſents from the puiſant Cham, UUe haue his highneſſe letters to commaund Aide and aſſiſtance if we ſtand in need. - c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher...
- But Baiothnoi, chief captain of the Tartarian army (for they were not admitted to speak with the great cham himself), cried quits with this friar, outvying him with the greatness and divinity of their cham; and sent...
An autocrat or dominant critic, especially Samuel Johnson.
- Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro’ the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four. - 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:
- The Tonsons […] would publish Johnson's Shakespeare only by subscription, obliging the Great Cham to sell copies well ahead of publication - 2007, Michael Dobson, “For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen”, in London Review...

From French cham, from Ottoman Turkish خان (han) (see there for more).

To chew.
- But he that repenteth toward the law of God, and at the sight of the sacrament, or of the breaking, feeling, eating, chamming, or drinking, calleth to remembrance the death of Christ, his body breaking and blood...

See chap.