And ſince we haue arriu’d in Scythia, Beſides rich preſents from the puiſant Cham, UUe haue his highneſſe letters to commaund Aide and aſſiſtance if we ſtand in need.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:
But Baiothnoi, chief captain of the Tartarian army (for they were not admitted to speak with the great cham himself), cried quits with this friar, outvying him with the greatness and divinity of their cham; and sent back by them a blunt letter[…]1840, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War:
2
An autocrat or dominant critic, especially Samuel Johnson.
Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro’ the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four.1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:
The Tonsons […] would publish Johnson's Shakespeare only by subscription, obliging the Great Cham to sell copies well ahead of publication2007, Michael Dobson, “For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen”, in London Review of Books, volume 29, number 9, page 3:
But he that repenteth toward the law of God, and at the sight of the sacrament, or of the breaking, feeling, eating, chamming, or drinking, calleth to remembrance the death of Christ, his body breaking and blood shedding for our sins [...]1531, William Tyndale, Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue:
cham
contraction
Etymology From Middle English icham, equivalent to ch- + am, from ich + am.
an ethnic Albanian from Çamëri, originally resided in the western part of the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece, an area known among Albanians as Çamëri (engl.: Chameria).