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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
chap·er·on    Audio Help   [shap-uh-rohn] Pronunciation Key
–noun
1.a person, usually a married or older woman, who, for propriety, accompanies a young unmarried woman in public or who attends a party of young unmarried men and women.
2.any adult present in order to maintain order or propriety at an activity of young people, as at a school dance.
3.a round headdress of stuffed cloth with wide cloth streamers that fall from the crown or are draped around it, worn in the 15th century.
–verb (used with object)
4.to attend or accompany as chaperon.
–verb (used without object)
5.to act as chaperon.


[Origin: 1350–1400; ME < AF, MF: hood, cowl, equiv. to chape cape1 + -eron n. suffix; figurative sense < F (18th century)]

chap·er·on·age    Audio Help   [shap-uh-roh-nij] Pronunciation Key, noun
chap·er·on·less, adjective

1, 4. escort.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
chaperon

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© 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
chap·er·on or chap·er·one    Audio Help   (shāp'ə-rōn')  Pronunciation Key 
n.  
  1. A person, especially an older or married woman, who accompanies a young unmarried woman in public.
  2. An older person who attends and supervises a social gathering for young people.
  3. A guide or companion whose purpose is to ensure propriety or restrict activity: "to see and feel the rough edges of the society . . . without the filter of official chaperones" (Philip Taubman).

tr.v.   chaper·oned, chaper·on·ing, chaper·ones
To act as chaperon to or for. See Synonyms at accompany.


[French, from chaperon, hood, from Old French, diminutive of chape, cape, head covering; see chape.]

chap'er·on'age (-rō'nĭj) n.
Word History: The chaperon at a high-school dance seems to have little relationship to what was first signified by the English word chaperon, "a hood for a hawk," and not even that much to what the word later meant, "a woman who protects a young single woman." The sense "hood for a hawk," recorded in a Middle English text composed before 1400, reflects the original meaning of the Old French word chaperon, "hood, headgear." In order to understand why our chaperon came to have the sense "protector," we need to know that in French the verb chaperonner, meaning "to cover with a hood," was derived from chaperon and that this verb subsequently developed the figurative sense "to protect." Under the influence of the verb sense the French noun chaperon came to mean "escort," a meaning that was borrowed into English, being found first in a work published in 1720. In its earlier use English chaperon referred to a person, commonly an older woman, who accompanied a young unmarried woman in public to protect her. The English verb chaperon, "to be a chaperon," is first recorded in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, begun in 1796 as a sketch called "Elinor and Marianne" and published as a novel in 1811.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
chaperon 
1720, from Fr. chaperon "protector," especially "female companion to a young woman," earlier "head covering, hood," from O.Fr. chaperon, dim. of chape "cape." The verb is first attested 1796. "... English writers often erroneously spell it chaperone, app. under the supposition that it requires a fem. termination." [OED]
"Chaperon ... when used metaphorically means that the experienced married woman shelters the youthful débutante as a hood shelters the face" [1864].

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
chaperon

noun
1. one who accompanies and supervises a young woman or gatherings of young people 

verb
1. accompany as a chaperone [syn: chaperone

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Chaperon

Chap"er*on\, n. [F. chaperon. See Chape, Cape, Cap.]

1. A hood; especially, an ornamental or an official hood.

His head and face covered with a chaperon, out of which there are but two holes to look through. --Howell.

2. A device placed on the foreheads of horses which draw the hearse in pompous funerals.

3. A matron who accompanies a young lady in public, for propriety, or as a guide and protector.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Chaperon

Chap"er*on\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Chaperoned; p. pr. & vb. n. Chaperoning.] [Cf. F. chaperonner, fr. chaperon.] To attend in public places as a guide and protector; to matronize.

Fortunately Lady Bell Finley, whom I had promised to chaperon, sent to excuse herself. --Hannah More.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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