Char

How to spell char

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce char

What does char mean?

1. verbTo burn something so its surface blackens or partly turns to carbon.
2. nounA cold-water fish related to trout and salmon, often with a reddish underside.

Char in a sentence

• verb

  A fierce grill will char the outside of the steak in seconds.

• noun

  The menu listed a fillet of Arctic char served with new potatoes.

• verb

  Leaving the toast too long will char the edges until they smoke.

• noun

  Anglers prize the char found in the deep lakes of the far north.

Where does char come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word char is really several look-alike words that have collapsed onto one spelling, which is part of why it feels slippery. The everyday verb meaning 'to scorch or burn the surface' is the youngest, recorded only from the late 1600s, and is generally taken as a back-formation from charcoal, as if charcoal were 'charred coal'. The element behind charcoal is itself uncertain, though many trace it to the Old English cierr or chare, meaning 'a turn' or 'a spell of work', the same source that gave us chore and the British charwoman who does turns of housework. Quite separately, the British colloquial char meaning 'tea' was carried home by traders and soldiers from the Chinese cha, the ordinary word for tea. A fourth char, the cold-water fish related to trout and salmon, has a murky history sometimes linked to a Celtic word for 'red', after the fish's reddish belly. Because the spelling is so short and these strands sound identical, the trap is simply choosing which meaning you mean rather than the letters themselves.

How the word is built

• char (single root; the scorching sense is a back-formation from charcoal)