Word.ws English Dictionary

chely

chely is the obsolete form of chela.

Meaning of chela

Noun (1)

chela (plural chelae)

  1. A pincer-like claw of a crustacean or arachnid.
    • It happeneth often, I confess, that a lobster hath the chely or great claw of one side longer than the other […]1646, Thomas Browne, chapter III, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 5

Noun (2)

chela (plural chelas or chele)

  1. A pupil or disciple, especially in Hinduism.
    • Nay, I had a disciple with me. He that was my friend at the Temple of the Tirthankers gave me a chela for this journey.1901, Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Proper noun capitalized: Chely

Chely

  1. A female given name.

Questions about chely

What does chely mean?
Chely means a female given name.
What is chely the obsolete form of?
Chely is the obsolete form of chela.
What part of speech is chely?
Chely is a proper noun.

Words near chely in the dictionary

  1. cheluviation
  2. Chelveston
  3. Chelveston cum Caldecott
  4. Chelvey
  5. Chelwood
  6. chely
  7. Chelyabinsk
  8. chelyabinskite
  9. chelydre
  10. chelydres
  11. chelydrid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chely (page history and authors); Chely (page history and authors); chela (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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Cite this entry: “chely.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chely. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.