noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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Received-Pronunciation:/ˈt͡ʃɔːdɹən/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
General-American:/ˈt͡ʃɔdɹən/
General-American, cot-caught-merger:/ˈt͡ʃɑdɹən/
General-American:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
1
noun
Meaning 1
The entrails of an animal, especially when used as a food ingredient; offal.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, historical
Topics: cooking, food, lifestyle
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
A sauce made from chopped animal entrails.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Topics: cooking, food, lifestyle
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From Late Middle English chaudon, chaudoun, chaudron (“sauce made from chopped entrails”), from Old French chaudun (“animal entrails; sauce made from such entrails”) (modern French chaudin (“wrapping of sausages made from pigs’ intestines; Louisiana meat dish cooked in a pig’s stomach”)), from Late Latin caldūmen (“animal entrails”), from Latin caldus (“hot; warm”) + -men (suffix forming nouns, generally describing the means or result of an action). Caldus is a variant of calidus (“hot; warm”), from caleō (“to be hot or warm”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelh1- (“to be hot”)) + -idus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘tending to’). The spellings with an r are probably influenced by English chaldron (“cauldron”) (obsolete) and Middle English caudroun (“cauldron”), while the spelling chawdron as a whole was probably popularized by its use in Macbeth (written c. 1606; published 1623) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (c. 1564 – 1616): see the quotation. Doublet of chaudin. cognates * German Kaldaunen (“bowels, guts”) * Greek γαρδούμπα (gardoúmpa, “dish containing goat or lamb offal”) * Lithuanian koldūnai (“stuffed dumpling”) * Middle Low German kaldûne (“bowels, guts”) * Sicilian quarumi (“veal tripe stew”)