The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.]
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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. A peddler; a hawker.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of chapman English)
Wikipedia
A chapman (plural chapmen) was an itinerant dealer or hawker in early modern Britain.
Usage examples of "chapmen".
Whiles came folk journeying in to Oakenrealm or out to Meadham, and of these some were minstrels, who had with them tidings of what was astir whereas folk were thicker in the world, and some chapmen, who chaffered with the thorpe-dwellers, and took of them the woodland spoil for such outland goods as those woodmen needed.
Certes among the Lacedaemonians it was found out that great numbers of merchants were nothing to the furtherance of the state of the commonwealth: wherefore it is to be wished that the huge heap of them were somewhat restrained, as also of our lawyers, so should the rest live more easily upon their own, and few honest chapmen be brought to decay by breaking of the bankrupt.
If these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things.
No, they brought more chapmen than ever before, carrying amber, furs, honey, tallow from the North, wine, glass, metalwork, cloth, fine pottery from the South and West.
Much was he there in the months that followed, both at Heorot and widely among yeomen, chapmen, or common fieldhands, workers, sailors.