chaser
Pluralchasers
- 1A person, animal or thing that chases someone or something.
In freeze tag, anyone touched by the chaser must stand still until a teammate frees them.
The fox doubled back through the hedge, and its chasers lost the scent.
Similarpursuer
- 2A drink taken right after another of a different kind, such as a beer after a shot of liquor.
The bartender lined up shots of vodka, each with a small pickle-juice chaser.
My grandfather took his rye neat and never bothered with chasers.
UsageOften named by the drink that follows: a beer chaser, or a shot with a water chaser.
Note
Bar talk gives the word its best-known phrase, straight, no chaser: a spirit taken on its own with nothing after it. The chaser is often the milder drink, as in a whiskey with a beer chaser, and the phrase has outgrown the bar; Kae Tempest's "I'm neat with no chaser / I'm all spirit" makes it a picture of a person undiluted.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Straight, no chaser describes an unmixed alcoholic drink without a following chaser. en.wiktionary.org
- Kae Tempest performs the quoted words in People's Faces. en.wiktionary.org
- 3A horse trained to race in steeplechases.
The gelding was only a moderate flat racer but became a top-class chaser once he learned to jump.
The trainer's best chaser will be aimed at the Gold Cup in the spring.
Similarsteeplechaser, jumper
Note
Racing clips steeplechaser to chaser, and some writers mark the cut with an apostrophe: a 'chaser. The word sorts horses by what they race over. A chaser jumps fences and a flat race never has one, though some horses race both on the flat and over jumps: the French horse Wild Risk won on the flat and over hurdles before becoming a leading sire of flat racers.
- 4Someone sexually drawn to people with a particular trait who actively pursues them as partners, usually in a fetishistic way.
Within a week of posting her profile, she could pick out the chasers, who asked about her weight before they asked her name.
The forum for trans women keeps a pinned thread on how to spot a chaser before agreeing to a first date.
UsageUsually a criticism, not a neutral word; compounds name the trait, as in chubby chaser.
Note
Here the old sense of chase, "pursue," plus -er has been carried into dating and sex, and the result is slang.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The sexual sense develops from chase meaning pursue, with the agent suffix -er. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A gun mounted at the bow or stern of a ship, used to fire at an enemy vessel during a chase.
As the privateer closed the gap, the frigate's stern chasers opened fire on her rigging.
A single long gun served as a bow chaser, the only weapon aboard that could bear on a ship dead ahead.
Note
The word usually comes with its position attached: a bow chaser or a stern chaser. While the broadside guns fired to the sides, chasers fired along the ship's length through ports cut in the bow or stern, the bow chaser at a ship being pursued, the stern chaser back at a pursuer.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- Chasers are distinguished as bow chasers and stern chasers. en.wikipedia.org
- Broadside guns fired from the sides of ships. en.wikipedia.org
- Bow chasers fired through ports in the bow. en.wikipedia.org
- Stern chasers fired through stern gunports. rmg.co.uk
- Bow chasers fired forward at a vessel being pursued. en.wiktionary.org
- Stern chasers fired backward at a pursuing vessel. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 6One of a row of neighboring light bulbs that switch on and off in sequence so that the light appears to move.
A ring of chaser lights circled the marquee, flashing in turn so the glow seemed to race around the theater's name.
The carnival ride was outlined in chaser lights that sent a ripple of color up each arm.
UsageMost often in the compound chaser lights.
- 7A craftsperson who decorates metal by engraving or embossing designs on it.
The chaser worked the design into the brass with small punches and a light hammer.
Her grandfather worked as a chaser in a silver factory, decorating trays and candlesticks.
Similarengraver
Note
This chaser comes from a different chase, the metalworker's verb for grooving and decorating, not from the pursuer. The craft is easily confused with engraving, but a chaser displaces and slightly depresses the surface without removing metal, so the design can be seen on the back or inside of the piece. In flat chasing the background is beaten down from the front, leaving the ornament in low relief.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- The metalworker's chaser derives from chase meaning to groove or decorate metal, separately from the pursuer. en.wiktionary.org
- Chasing depresses or displaces metal without cutting material away; engraving removes material. goldsmiths-centre.org
- Chasing can leave the design visible on the reverse or inside. navymwr.org
- Beating down the background from the front can produce ornament in low relief. chestofbooks.com.stason.org
- 8A cutting tool with several teeth that forms screw threads, used in a lathe or fitted in a die head, or a similar tool for cleaning and repairing damaged threads.
Before reassembling the engine, she cleaned the corroded threads in the block with a chaser.
The die head holds a set of four chasers that cut the whole thread in one pass.
Note
The name comes from chase in its grooving sense, the same verb behind the metal decorator. Chasers finish threads as well as clean them: a chaser is a multiple-point cutter with several teeth, where a single-point tool has one. Because hardening can shift the pitch of those teeth, a chaser meant for very accurate work has its teeth ground after it is hardened.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- The thread-cutting tool and the metal decorator derive their names from the same grooving or decorating verb. en.wiktionary.org
- Chasers are used to finish threads. nvlpubs.nist.gov
- Chasers are also used to clean threads. en.wiktionary.org
- A chaser has multiple cutting points, whereas a single-point threading tool has one. nvlpubs.nist.gov
- Hardening can change the pitch of a chaser's teeth. gutenberg.org
- Chaser teeth are ground after hardening for accurate thread finishing. nvlpubs.nist.gov
- 9A horse that has been bred and trained to carry a rider in the hunt; a hunter.
Note
Hunting people no longer call their horses chasers: the animal that carries a rider after hounds is simply a hunter. In the horse world today a chaser is a steeplechaser, so a modern reader who meets the old use in older writing may wrongly picture a racehorse.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- Chaser formerly meant a hunter: a horse bred and trained for hunting. en.wiktionary.org
- 10A piece of music played after a show while the audience is leaving.
After the final curtain the orchestra played a "chaser" which was music played while the audience members not remaining for the after-show concert left the theatre.
1969, Robert Dean Klassen, The Tent-repertoire Theatre: A Rural American InstitutionNote
Theaters needed a way to empty the house, and the chaser did it: in touring tent shows the orchestra struck one up after the final curtain while those not staying for the concert left. Vaudeville, running its programs continuously, sometimes used a film for the same job, so a chaser could be watched as well as heard. The word now belongs to theater history.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Chaser music helped theaters hurry departing audiences out. files.eric.ed.gov
- In tent shows, the orchestra played a chaser after the final curtain while spectators not staying for the after-show concert left. en.wiktionary.org
- Vaudeville theaters offered continuous performances. tile.loc.gov
- A film could serve as a vaudeville chaser to encourage the audience to leave. en.wikipedia.org
- 11In Quidditch, or in its real-life version, a player whose job is to pass the quaffle and score goals with it.
- 12A guard who watches military prisoners while they carry out fatigue duty, or a prison guard in general.
- 13A person who seeks out sexual partners who have HIV in order to become infected with the virus.
- 14A dragonfly of the family Libellulidae, especially one of the genus Libellula, the usual British name for these broad-bodied species.
- 15In logging, a worker who follows or receives logs as they are hauled in, signalling the engine operator and unhooking the chokers at the landing.
Practice
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Origins
Old French chacier ("to chase, hunt") gave chaceür, which Middle English borrowed as chaser, chacer or chasour, and modern English inherited the word. Later senses come from chase ("pursue") + -er or were influenced by it. Chasseur is a doublet.
From chase ("to groove; to decorate metal") + -er.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The metalworking word chaser derives from chase plus -er. en.wiktionary.org
- Chase means “to groove” and “to decorate metal”. en.wiktionary.org