chit

Meanings

Noun

• A child or babe; a young, small, or insignificant person or animal.
• A pert or sassy young person, especially a young woman.
• The embryonic growing bud of a plant
• An excrescence on the body, as a wart or a pimple.
• A small sheet or scrap of paper with a hand-written note as a reminder or personal message.
• A voucher or token coin used in payrolls under the truck system.
• A small sheet of paper on which is written a prescription to be filled; a scrip.
• A smaller cardboard counter generally used not to directly represent something but for another, more transient, purpose such as tracking or randomization.
• A signed voucher or memorandum of a small debt, as for food and drinks at a club.
• A debt or favor owed in return for a prior loan or favor granted, especially a political favor.
• A small tool used in cleaving laths. Compare: froe.
• Shit.

Verb

• To sprout; to shoot, as a seed or plant.
• To damage the outer layers of a seed such as Lupinus or Sophora to assist germination.
• To initiate sprouting of tubers, such as potatoes, by placing them in special environment, before planting into the soil.

Interjection

• Shit.

Origin

• From Middle English chitte, from Old English *ċytten, *ċietten, *ċitten, from Proto-West Germanic *kittīn, from Proto-Germanic *kittīną. Cognate with Scots chit, Low German kitte, German Kitz. See also kid.
• From Middle English *chit, *chitte, from Old English ċīþ ("germ, seed, sprout, shoot"), from Proto-Germanic *kīþą ("sprout"), from Proto-Indo-European *ĝī-, *ĝey-. Cognate with Middle Dutch kiede ("sprout"), dialectal German Keid ("sprout"). scion.
• From chitty, from Hindi चिट्ठी ("letter, note, written message").
• Perhaps from specialized technical use of Etymology 2, above, “a bud; an excressence” (Hunter 1882).
• Euphemistic variation of shit.