chamois
/ˈʃæmwɑː/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
plural/ˈʃæmwɑːz/
chamois noun: a short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra. Also the ellipsis of chamois leather.
Noun
chamois (countable and uncountable, plural chamoises or chamois or chamoix)
- A short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra.
- When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub – a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills.1831 October 31, Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, chapter I, in Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (Standard Novels; IX), 3rd edition, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 22
- The traditional colour of chamois leather.
- An absorbent cloth used for cleaning and polishing, formerly made of chamois leather.
- I took them, breathed on them, polished them with a chamois and hung them on the chandelier.1926, Louise de Koven Bowen, Growing Up with a City, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 39
- Mirrors can be cleaned with warm water and ammonia or vinegar and polished with a chamois.1984, Cruising World, page 158
- A padded insert which protects the groin from the bicycle saddle.
Adjective
chamois (not comparable)
- Chamois-colored.
Verb
chamois (third-person singular simple present chamoises, present participle chamoising, simple past and past participle chamoised)
- To clean with a chamois leather cloth.
- Synonyms:
- shammy
Also used as
chamois is also the ellipsis of chamois leather.
chamois meaning in Tagalog and Persian
chamois in Tagalog
- goat-like antelope
- gamusa
- cloth
- gamusa
chamois in Persian
- cloth
- کیمخت kimoxt
Synonyms of chamois
Forms of chamois
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | chamoises |
| plural | chamois |
| plural | chamoix |
| alternative form | chamoix |
| alternative form | shamois |
| alternative form | shamoy |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | chamoises |
| present participle | chamoising |
| past participle | chamoised |
| past | chamoised |
Origin of chamois
Borrowed from Middle French chamois, from Late Latin camox, from Gaulish camox (5th c. AD, Polemius Silvius), probably from an extinct Alpine language (Raetic, Ancient Ligurian), possibly Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“without horns”). Compare also Old High German gamiza (“chamois”) (whence modern German Gämse).
Words formed from chamois
Phrases with chamois
Words that rhyme with chamois
Questions about chamois
- What does chamois mean?
- Chamois means a short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra.
- What is chamois in Tagalog?
- Chamois in Tagalog is gamusa. See Chamois meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is chamois?
- Chamois can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce chamois?
- Chamois is pronounced /ˈʃæmwɑː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of chamois?
- The plural of chamois is chamoises.
Words near chamois in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chamois (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chamois.wav.
Cite this entry: “chamois.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chamois. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.