Cham plain (shamplan)

[ The loose deposits or drifts overlying the lower unstratified boulder-clay belong to the period of the melting of the great ice-sheets, when large bodies of water, discharged acro the land, levelled down the detritus that had formed below or in the under part of the ice. This remodelled drift has been called the Cham plain group. Geikie , 1885. champlevé (shamp-le-vā'), a. and n. [F., pp. of champ lever, 918 II. n. The art or method of producing such work in enamel: as, a plaque in champlevé . In champlevé the enamelling substance is applied to the surface of the gold as ornamental details, and is "fired" in a muffle or furnace under the eye of the enameller. Encyc. Brit., XIII. 679. chant, n. An obsolete form of khan . chana (chänä), n. An East Indian name for the chick-pea or gram, Cicer arietinum . chance (chans), n. and a. [Early mod. E. also chaunce , chance , chaunce , cheance , cheaunce = MHG.schanze , schantz , cheance , chaance , F. chance , chance, hazard, risk, luck, = Pr. ca- zensa = It. cadenza , cadent i a , that which falls out, esp. favorably (particularly used in dice-playing), caden ( t- )s, ppr. of cadere , fall: see cadent , cadence, cadenza , and case1 .] I. n. 1t. Fall; falling. The daie is go, the nightes chaunce Hath derked all the brighte sonne. Gower , Conf. Amant., III. 307. 21. A throw of dice; the number turned up by a die. 1 Seven is my chaunce , and thyn is cink and treye. Chaucer, Pardoner's Tale, 1. 191. Also next thys place ys an Auter wher the Crucyfyers Devydyd hys Clothes by Chaunce of the Dyce. Torkington , Diarie of Eng. Travell, p. 42. The very dice obey him, And in our sports my better cunning faints Under his chance. Shak ., A. and C., ii. 3. Hence-3. Risk; hazard; a balanced po ibility of gain or lo , particularly in gaming; uncertainty. There is a divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Shak ., M. W. of W., v. 1. And I another, So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance , To mend it, or be rid on 't. Shak ., Macbeth, iii. 1. Gambling and usury are also prohibited, and all games of chance . E. W. Lane, Modern Egyptians, I. 114. 4. A contingent or unexpected event; an event which might or might not befall. For ill chaunce me fell unfortunatly At my firste gynnyng and commencement. Rom . of Partenay (E. E. T. S.), 1. 3976. Then we shall know that it was not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us. 1 Sam. vi. 9. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a ble ed time. Shak ., Macbeth, ii. 3. I am very glad that the chances of life have brought us two hundred miles nearer together. Sydney Smith , To Francis Jeffrey. Tennyson, Miller's Daughter. 5. Vici itude; contingent or unexpected events in a series or collectively. Many a chance the years beget. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but time and chance happen eth to them all. Eccl. ix. 11. 6. Luck; fortune; that which happens to or befalls one. Than gan the chaunce to chaunge fro hem that hadde the better. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), iii. 406. Yit wil I sue this matier faithfully Whils I may live, what euer be my chaunce; And if it happe that in my trout he I dye, That deth shal not doo me noo disples a unce. Political Poems , etc. (ed. Furnivall), p. 68. Prithee, go hence; Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through the ashes of my chance . Shak ., A. and C., v. 2. Tell them your chance , and bring them back again Into this wood. Greene, Alphonsus, ii. 7. Opportunity; a favorable contingency: as, now is your chance. And some one day, some wondrous chance appears, Which happened not in centuries of years. Dryden, Pal. and Arc., 1. 825. They [Roman shipmen] had learned that men who lived on the western coast of Spain had no real chance of daily hearing the sun hi as his fiery ball sank into the waters of the giant stream. E. A. Freeman , Amer. Lects., p. 106. 8. Probability; the proportion of events favorable to a hypothesis out of all those which may occur: as, the chances are against your succeeding. No more chance of a Whig administration than of a thaw in Zembla. Sydney Smith, in Lady Holland, ii. A single occurrence opposed to our general experience would tell for very little in our calculation of the chances. Macaulay , West. Reviewer's Def. of Mill. An urn has two white balls and five black ones: there are seven equally likely drawings, two white; therefore the chance or probability of drawing a white ball is two-sevenths. De Morgan. 9. Fortuity; especially, the absence of a cause nece itating an event, or the absence of any known reason why an event should turn out one way rather than another, spoken of as if chancel event under given general conditions, viewed as a real agency. So we profe Ourselves to be the slaves of chance , and flies Of every wind that blows. Next him, high arbiter, Shak., W. T., iv. 3. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. Shak ., Macbeth, i. 3. Chance governs all. Milton , P. L., ii. 910. It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident. Clarke , Sermons, I. xeviii. The Bible takes quite as strong ground as the physicist on the side of law. The weather is not with it a matter of chance , or the sport of capricious demons. God arranged it all far back in the work of creation. Dawson , Nature and the Bible, p. 60. The amount of a nation's savings is no affair of chance ; it is governed much more by commercial reasons than is sometimes supposed. Rae , Contemporary Socialism, p. 334. Chance is a term by which we expre the irregularities in phenomena, disregarding their uniformities. G. H. Lewes, Probs. of Life and Mind, II. ii. § 90. Absolute chance, the (supposed) spontaneous occurrence of events undetermined by any general law or by any free volition. According to Aristotle, events may come about in three ways: first, by nece ity or an external compulsion; second, by nature, or the development of an inward germinal tendency; and third, by chance, without any determining cause or principle whatever, by lawle , sporadic originality. By chance, without design; accidentally. As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear. 2 Sam. 1. 6. But those great actions others do by chance Are, like your beauty, your inheritance. Dryden, Epistles, iv. 21. 'Tis hard if all is false that I advance; A fool must now and then be right by chance. Cowper , Conversation. Even chance, probability equally balanced for and against an event. - Main chance, the chance or probability of most importance or greatest advantage; hence, the end or stake to be kept most in view; the chief personal advantage. That habit of forethought for the main chance grew with his years, and finally placed him in the first line of millionaires in America. W. Barrows, Oregon, p. 59. He has made his money by looking after the main chance. Fortnightly Rev. , N. S., XL. 25. Theory or doctrine of chances. See probability . - To take one's chance, to accept the risks incident to an undertaking or venture. II. a . Resulting from or due to chance; casual; unexpected: as, a chance remark; a chance customer. They met like chance companions on the way. Dryden . =Syn. Casual , Fortuitous , etc. See accidental . chance (chans), v .; pret. and pp. chanced , ppr. chancing . [ chance , n.] I. in trans. To happen; fall out; come or arrive without design or expectation. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day. Shak ., J. C., i. 2. Our discourse chanced to be upon the subject of death. Steele, Tatler, No. 114. Surely I shall chance upon some Thyrsis piping in the pine-tree shade, or Daphne flying from the arms of Phœbus. J. A. Symonds, Italy and Greece, p. 6. [This verb is sometimes used impersonally. How chances it they travel? Sometimes the it is omitted. Shak ., Hamlet, ii. 2. How chance the king comes with so small a number? Shak ., Lear, ii. 4.] II. trans. 1. To befall or happen to. [Rare.] What would have chanced me all these years, As boy and man, had you not come From your Olympian home? T. B. Aldrich, At Two score. 2. To risk; hazard; take the chances of: as, the thing may be dangerous, but I will chance it. [Colloq.] chance (chans), adv. [Perhaps only in the following pa age, where it is often printed'chance; short for perchance or by chance.] By chance; perchance. If, chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate. Gray, Elegy. chance ablet (chan'sa-bl), a. [ So farre were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the chaunce able hitting vppon any such verses great fore-tokens of their following fortunes were placed. Sir P. Sidney, Apol. for Poetrie. chanceablyt (chan'sa-bli), adv. Casually; by chance. Sir P. Sidney. chanceful (chans'ful), a. [ All are not lost who join in chanceful war. J. Baillie . chancel (chan's el), n . [ chauncel , chaun chancel chancel, L. cancelli, pl., a grating, latticework: see cancel.] 1. Eccles., the inclosed space in a church surrounding the altar, and railed off from the choir; the sanctuary. In small churches having no separate choir the altar-rails (and in some churches the screen or latticework) divide the chancel immediately from the body of the church. In a wider sense the words chancel and choir are sometimes used to include both the sanctuary and the choir proper. In Greek churches the bema answers to the chancel or sanctuary, and the iconostasis (as the choir does not intervene between sanctuary and nave) corresponds in some measure to both altar-rails and rood-screen, to the former as separating the altar from the rest of the church, and to the latter as constituting a marked boundary to the nave. 2. An inclosed space railed off in courts of judicature.