☼ Concept Map

''chattel'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''chattel'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250824222348-00-⌔

chattel - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

chattel (plural chattels)

  • Tangible, movable property.
    • ✤ […] although of course the firm had changed hands many times over the centuries, […] But the box has always been part of the chattels, as it were.1
  • A slave.
    • ✤ Not all his servants and chattels are wraiths!2

Etymology

From Middle English chatel, from Old French chatel, from Medieval Latin capitāle (English capital), from Latin capitālis (“of the head”), from caput (“head”) + -alis (“-al”). Compare the doublet cattle (“cows”), which is from an Anglo-Norman variant. Compare also capital and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈt͡ʃæt.l̩/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ætəl

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1990, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, Corgi, page 387: ↩

  2. 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring [Book 2, Chapter 1 - Many Meetings] ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •