What is "chapman"

Chapman \Chap"man\, n.; pl. Chapmen. [AS. ce['a]pman; ce['a]p trade + man man; akin to D. koopman, Sw. k["o]pman, Dan. ki["o]pmand, G. kaufmann.f. Chap to cheapen, and see Cheap.]

1. One who buys and sells; a merchant; a buyer or a seller.

   The word of life is a quick commodity, and ought not, as a drug to be obtruded on those chapmen who are unwilling to buy it.
   --T. Fuller.

2. A peddler; a hawker.

"peddler, itinerant tradesman," Middle English form of Old English ceapman "tradesman," from West Germanic compound *kaupman- (cognates: Old High German choufman, German Kauffman, Middle Dutch and Dutch koopman), formed with equivalents of man (n.) + West Germanic *kaup- (cognates: Old Saxon cop, Old Frisian kap "trade, purchase," Middle Dutch coop, Dutch koop "trade, market, bargain," kauf "trader," Old English ceap "barter, business; a purchase"), from Proto-Germanic *kaupoz- (cognates: Danish kjøb "purchase, bargain," Old Norse kaup "bargain, pay;" compare also Old Church Slavonic kupiti "to buy," a Germanic loan-word), probably an early Germanic borrowing from Latin caupo (genitive cauponis) "petty tradesman, huckster," which is of unknown origin. Compare also cheap (adj.).

n. (context obsolete English) a dealer or merchant, especially an itinerant one

Chapman is an English occupational surname. A chapman was a merchant in medieval Britain. It is the cognate of the German Kaufmann.

Chapman is a lunar crater that lies just beyond the northwest rim of the Moon, on the far side as seen from the Earth. It lies to the northeast of the crater Rynin, and southward of the large walled plain Poczobutt.

This is an old, eroded crater formation with features that have been softened and worn by impacts until now it just forms a bowl-shaped depression in the surface. The rim is circular in form along most of its perimeter, but has been broken through along the southern edge by Chapman W. There is an unnamed crater-like depression in the surface attached to the southwest rim, and here the edge is low and more narrow than the remaining inner wall.

Several small craters lie along the outer rim and inner wall, with an attached pair forming a cleft in the western rim. There is a slender cleft in the wall along the northwest inner wall that runs from the western rim to the north. The interior floor of the crater is relatively flat and featureless in comparison to the rugged terrain that surrounds the crater, although it is pock-marked by several small impacts in the southeast quadrant.

Chapman is a literary magazine based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has published many Scottish and international authors, including Iain Crichton Smith, Alasdair Gray, Sorley MacLean and Kathleen Raine. It covers new poetry and short fiction, as well as critical essays and reviews.

It was started in 1969 as The Chapman, a pamphlet edited by George Hardie and Walter Perrie. Robert Calder, Joy Hendry and Walter Perrie edited the magazine during 1975. Joy Hendry began editing the title first in conjunction with Perrie, then solo from Issue 16 in 1976. She is the magazine's editor today.

It is variously known as Chapman magazine, Chapman: Scotland's Quality Literary Magazine, but Chapman is its proper title.

Chapman is an English surname derived from the Old English occupational name céapmann “marketman, monger, merchant”, from the verb céapan, cypan “to buy or sell” and the noun form ceap "barter, business; a purchase." Alternate spellings include Caepmon, Cepeman, Chepmon, Cypman(n), and Shapman. (By 1600, the occupational name chapman had come to be applied to an itinerant dealer in particular, but it remained in use for both "customer, buyer" and "merchant" in the 17th and 18th centuries. Modern chiefly British slang chap “man" arose from the use of the abbreviated word to mean a customer, one with whom to bargain.)

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) supplies four meanings for chapman, all of which pertain to buying and selling: 1) A man whose business was buying and selling; 2) an itinerant dealer who travels, also known as a hawker or peddler; 3) an agent in a commercial transaction; 4) a purchaser or customer. (N.B. A “petty chapman” was a retail dealer.) The OED includes a citation of an English ordinance or decree that dates from 1553, during the reign of Edward VI: "No Tinker, Peddler, or petit Chapman shall wander about from the Towne but such as shall be licensed by two Justices of Peace." According to a list of colonial occupations, a chapman is a peddler or dealer of goods, usually itinerant, going from village to village. The related word chapbook is a later coinage from the 19th century which appears to refer to the fact that chapbooks were very cheaply made. From Old English ceap is also derived cheap “inexpensive,” a shortening of good ceap “good buy,” and Cheapside “market place,” a street in London that both historically and in modern times has been the financial center of the city.

Both the compound “chapman” and its first element chap- have cognates in all the major Germanic languages: From the prehistoric West Germanic compound *kaup- are derived cognates Old Saxon cop, Old Frisian kap "trade, purchase," Middle Dutch coop, modern Dutch kopen “buy,” koop "trade, market, bargain and goedkoop “inexpensive." These are akin to Old High German choufman, German Kaufmann, a common modern German surname; and North Germanic forms leading to Old Norse kaup "bargain, pay,” modern Swedish köpa “buy,” and modern Danish kjøb "purchase, bargain" and Copenhagen (originally Køpmannæhafn "merchants' harbor, buyer's haven"). The common ancestor is Proto-Germanic *kaupoz-, which was probably an ancient Germanic borrowing of Latin caupo, caupon- "petty tradesman, huckster," of unknown ulterior etymology. From the German the word was borrowed into the Slavic languages ( Old Slavic koupiti, modern Russian купить, etc.), the Baltic languages ( Old Prussian kaupiskan “trade, commerce,” Lithuanian kὑpczus “merchant”) and Finnish kaupata “to sell cheaply.” In the Romance languages, however, the word has not survived.

People with the surname or nickname Chapman include: