Word.ws English Dictionary

chantwell

Syllables: chant·well/ˈtʃæntwɛl/US/ˈt͡ʃæntˌwɛl/

chantwell noun: a (generally female) lead singer of traditional cariso music, or of a calypso band.

Noun

chantwell (plural chantwells)

  1. (Trinidad-and-Tobago) A (generally female) lead singer of traditional cariso music, or of a calypso band.
    • The weird, off-beat music known as "calypso" is played in all the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean, but the place to hear it at its best is in Trinidad, where it originated. Every year the calypso singers, or "chantwells," as they are called, hold a "war" to decide the championship. The...1952, The American Magazine, volume 154, New York, N.Y.: Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 97, column 1
    • Calypso began with the "chantwells." These were slaves who entertained plantation owners in colonial times. The chantwells made up songs about the people they knew and the things that happened to them.1976, Robert J. Alexander et al., edited by John P. Augelli, Caribbean Lands, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Fideler Co., →ISBN, page 89, column 1

Examples of chantwell in a sentence

  • Every year the calypso singers, or "chantwells," as they are called, hold a "war" to decide the championship.1952, The American Magazine, volume 154, New York, N.Y.: Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 97, column 1:
  • The chantwell, or lead singers, of the stick-fighting groups functioned as social commentator and haranguer and so may be considered very early calypsonians.2008, “Calypso”, in Richard M. Juang, Noelle Morrissette, Melissa Fullmer, editors, Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and...

Forms of chantwell

pluralchantwells
alternative formchantuelle

Origin of chantwell

Probably from French chanterelle (“female bird used by hunters as a decoy to attract other birds; treble string of a musical instrument”), from chanter (“to sing, crow”) + -erelle (variant of -elle (suffix forming feminine nouns, often with a diminutive sense)).

Questions about chantwell

What does chantwell mean?
Chantwell means a (generally female) lead singer of traditional cariso music, or of a calypso band.
How do you use chantwell in a sentence?
Every year the calypso singers, or "chantwells," as they are called, hold a "war" to decide the championship.
What part of speech is chantwell?
Chantwell is a noun.
How do you pronounce chantwell?
Chantwell is pronounced /ˈtʃæntwɛl/ (UK).
What is the plural of chantwell?
The plural of chantwell is chantwells.

Words near chantwell in the dictionary

  1. chantriolide
  2. chantry
  3. chants
  4. chantuelle
  5. chantuelles
  6. chantwell
  7. chantwells
  8. chanty
  9. chantyman
  10. chantymen
  11. Chanuca

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chantwell (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chantwell.wav.

Cite this entry: “chantwell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chantwell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.