Chase

How to spell chase

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chase

What does chase mean?

1. verbTo run after or pursue someone or something in order to catch, reach, or drive it away.
2. nounAn act of pursuing someone or something, or the activity of hunting.

Chase in a sentence

• verb

  The dog likes to chase squirrels across the garden.

• noun

  The film ends with a dramatic car chase through the city.

• verb

  Detectives often chase leads that go nowhere.

• noun

  After a long chase the police finally cornered the suspect.

Where does chase come from?

Language of origin: French

Chase came into English in the 1200s from the Old French verb chacier, meaning 'to hunt' or 'to pursue', which described the chasing down of game. That French word grew out of the Vulgar Latin captiare, a frequentative form built on the Latin capere, meaning 'to take' or 'to seize', so the underlying idea was repeatedly trying to catch something. Interestingly, the everyday word 'catch' is a near twin of chase: it travelled into English from a northern French dialect form of the very same Latin verb, which is why the two words sit so close in meaning. Over time chase broadened from the strictly aristocratic sense of hunting (a 'chase' was once an unfenced tract of land kept for hunting) to the general modern senses of pursuing on foot, pursuing a goal, and even cutting grooves into stone or metal. The spelling stays mercifully simple, but the silent shaping comes from that French 'ch' sound, which English kept rather than turning into a hard 'c'.

How the word is built

• chase (from Old French chacier 'to hunt, pursue'); no productive prefix or suffix