chawl meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

chawl

noun

Etymology Borrowed from Marathi चाळ (cāḷ), from Sanskrit. Doublet of cell.

A type of residential tenement building found in India, typically for poor working-class people.

I came from a chawl, and when I started out main zyada baat nahi karta tha, mera haath zyada chalta tha (both laugh!2016 June 19, “Tiger Shroff: My father is the original hero, he doesn’t have to try like me. I fake it.”, in The Times of India:
Dhirubhai Ambani's first home in Mumbai was nearly as humble as the ones the gawking labourers inhabit: a pigeonhole chawl four kilometres from Antilia, in the pushcart-clogged trading neighbourhood of Bhuleshwar.2017, Sunil Khilnani, Incarnations, Penguin, page 419:

noun

Etymology From Middle English chaule, chavel, from Old English ċeafl (“jaw, jowl”). More at jowl.

UK, Dialectal, Of a person Jaw or cheek.

UK, Dialectal, Of an animal Jowl; cheek; face.