Dictionary

chapeler en · NOUN

Etymology

From chapel + -er.

Meanings

1. A member of a religious sect in the 18th and 19th centuries that questioned the legitimacy of the priesthood.
   • There was but little discord between church and chapel, except at treat-times, and on kindred occasions of exceptional excitement; and every Sunday evening church dames, duly equipped with Rippon’s Selection, an unopened pocket-handkerchief, and a sprig of boy’s love, might be seen marching, like any chapelers, to Zoar. 1876, Edward Whitaker, “Tempus est Ludendi”, in Parley Magna. A Novel., volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], page 57:
   • “Parson Budd be a tremendous Church-of-Englander, so I heard squire say. He ’ve got his knife into all chapelers an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.” 1903, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, page 40, column 2:
   • He said he would get his own back on the ‘chapelers,’ and die. 1985, Fury Never Leaves Us: A Miscellany of Caradoc Evans, Poetry Wales Press, page 58:
   • “Do not be annoyed,” writes the editor of The Homilist to his son, “by the idle gossip and stupid prejudice of chapelers.[…]” 1902, David Morgan Thomas, Urijah Rees Thomas: His Life and Work, page 108:
2. A maker of caps.
   • A marked feature of the old trades of London was the minute subdivisions which took place among them: thus there were hatters, cappers, chapelers (makers of caps) and hurers. 1909, Henry Benjamin Wheatley, The Story of London, page 301:

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