chat
Noun pluralchats
Pluralchats
- 1To talk in a friendly, informal way, sometimes about a particular subject.
The neighbors often chat over the garden fence at dusk.
She chatted with the barista while waiting for her order.
UsageUsually chat with or to someone, about a subject, over coffee.
Note
The word is a clipping of chatter, and it keeps chatter's lightness: the talk is easy rather than purposeful. The same clipping gives the bird name, after a call that sounds like chatter.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Chat is a clipping of chatter. en.wiktionary.org
- The bird name has the same derivation and refers to its chattering call. en.wiktionary.org
- 2A real-time exchange of text or voice messages over a network, or the online space where such messages are posted, as beside a live stream.
The team coordinated the launch through a group chat.
A quick chat on the app settled the dispute in minutes.
UsageCommon in group chat; messages go in the chat.
Similarconversation
- 3Relaxed, informal conversation about everyday matters.
They enjoyed a long chat about their weekend plans.
A brief chat with her neighbor brightened the whole morning.
UsageUsually have a chat: have a quick chat with someone. Chat alone is talk in general.
Similarconversation, talk, natter
Note
Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1962) sets it beside chinwag: "Reg liked a chat about old times," one man recalls, and they would "go and have a chinwag." The pairing fits, because both name talk valued for its own sake.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Margery Allingham wrote The China Governess. fadedpage.com
- 4To exchange text or voice messages in real time over a computer network, as if talking face to face.
We chat on the messaging app whenever she's traveling.
During her lunch break, she chatted with her brother on a messaging app, typing back and forth about their weekend plans.
UsageChat on an app, chat with someone online.
- 5Any of several small, unrelated songbirds of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas, such as the stonechat, the crimson chat and the yellow-breasted chat.
A chat perched on the fencepost before darting after a moth.
On our trip to central Australia we finally saw a crimson chat feeding among the desert flowers.
Note
The name comes from the call: chat is a clipping of chatter, the same word as the conversational verb. It was given to several groups of birds that are not closely related: Old World chats in the flycatcher family, Australian honeyeaters such as the crimson chat, and American birds such as the yellow-breasted chat. A full name like stonechat or yellow-breasted chat says which bird is meant.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The bird name chat is a clipping of chatter, shares its etymology with the conversational verb, and refers to the bird's call. en.wiktionary.org
- Birds called chats include distinct lineages, including Australian honeyeaters. en.wikipedia.org
- Old World chats belong to the flycatcher family Muscicapidae. en.wikipedia.org
- The crimson chat is an Australian bird in Meliphagidae, the honeyeater family. en.wikipedia.org
- The yellow-breasted chat is an American bird. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 6The people posting in a chat room or live stream's chat, considered as a group; also used to address them, like 'guys.'
The streamer thanked the chat for their support during the marathon.
Chat erupted with laughter at the host's joke.
Note
Metonymy turns the room into the people in it: "the chat just made a joke" means the viewers did. The usage grew up in video gaming and streaming, where the audience speaks only through its messages. Senator Fatima Payman's 2024 "Chat, is this prime minister serious?" shows the next step, in which the word addresses the crowd directly.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The collective audience sense is metonymic and originated in video gaming and streaming. en.wiktionary.org
- Senator Fatima Payman said "Chat, is this prime minister serious?" in 2024, addressing an audience beyond a streaming chat. openaustralia.org.au
- 7To speak nonsense or tell deliberate lies.
He'll chat pure nonsense once he's had a few drinks.
She accused him of chatting rubbish about her behind her back.
UsageOften with an object: chat rubbish, chat nonsense. You're chatting on its own can mean 'you're talking nonsense'.
Note
This is slang with a sharp edge. Because the friendly meaning is so common, the -ing form and the tone carry the jab. It usually takes a word for nonsense as its object, from rubbish to ruder ones, or stands alone as chatting, so a speaker who says Don't listen to me, I'm chatting admits to talking nonsense.
- 8Another spelling of chaat: any of various tangy, spicy savory snacks from South Asia, often sold at street stalls.
She picked up some tangy chat on the way home.
Every evening the vendors served fresh chat near the temple.
Note
Food writing borrows this spelling for a snack, not a conversation. Here chat means chaat: the savory dishes sold at roadside stalls in India and other South Asian countries, or served as a starter in Indian restaurants. Because this spelling collides with the everyday word for talk, context does all the work. Spelling it chaat avoids the ambiguity in writing.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Chat is an alternative spelling of chaat. en.wiktionary.org
- Chaat comprises savory snacks sold at roadside stalls in India and elsewhere in South Asia. en.wiktionary.org
- Chaat is also served as a restaurant starter. en.wikivoyage.org
- 9A small potato. In Australia, a small new potato sold for cooking whole; formerly, an undersized potato fed to pigs.
Any potato smaller than a walnut counted as a chat and went into the pig bucket.
When we dug the potatoes, we kept the big ones for the kitchen and boiled up the chats for the pigs.
Note
Farm talk supplies a separate word here, with no link to conversation. Its origin is compared with chit, "small piece of paper," and with chad, both words for small things. Edith Whetham's volume of The Agrarian History of England and Wales (1978) shows it in the plural, alongside other leftovers: "tail corn for the poultry and chats for the pigs."
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- The potato noun has a separate etymology from conversational chat and is compared with chit and chad. en.wiktionary.org
- Chit can mean a small piece of paper. en.wiktionary.org
- Chad denotes small pieces. en.wiktionary.org
- Whetham's volume of The Agrarian History of England and Wales was published in 1978. en.wikipedia.org
- The volume contains the quoted wording, using chats in the plural. en.wiktionary.org
- 10A louse; a small parasitic insect infesting the body or clothing.
- 11Waste rock and gravel left over from lead and zinc mining.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
A short form of "chatter." As a bird name, it comes from the noise the bird makes when calling.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Chat is a short form of chatter. en.wiktionary.org
- The bird name chat comes from the sound of the bird's call. en.wiktionary.org