The word chore, which has been thought peculiar to America, is without doubt the same as the word char, which, both as a verb and a noun, may be found in the English dictionaries. "In America," says Mr. Webster, "this word denotes small work of a domestic kind as distinguished from the principal work of the day. It is generally used in the plural, chores, which includes the daily or occasional business of feeding cattle and other animals preparing fuel, sweeping the house, cleaning furniture," &c.
According to the English dictionaries char means work done by the day, a single job or task; from which has arisen the words char-man and char-woman. In Jenning's Glossary of Somersetshire, is the word choor, a job, or any dirty household work; choor-woman, a woman who goes out to do any kind of odd or dirty work. In Wiltshire, it is pronounced cheare. This as well as the Somerset word is very near the American word in pronunciation.
That char is charr'd, as the good woman said when she had hang'd her husband (i. e. The business is done).--Ray's Proverbs.
His hands to woll, and arras worke, and woman's chares he laide.
Warner's Albion's England, ii. 111.
A woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milkes
And does the meanest chares.
Shakspeare, Ant. \& Cleop.
Bob. I approve Your counsel, and will practise it; bazi los manos; Here's two cheares chear'd.--Beaum. and Fletch. Love's Cure. The harvest done, to char-work did aspire; Meat, drink, and two pence, were her daily hire.
Dryden, Theoc.
Get three or four char-women to attend you constantly in the kitchen, whom you pay only with broken meat, a few coals, and all the cinders.
Swift.
Hunting cattle is a dreadful chore! remarked one of our neighbors, after threading the country for three weeks in search of his best ox.
Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life, Vol. I. p. 142.
I'm looking for a place where I can board and do chores myself.
Mrs. Clavers, A New Home, p. 87.
Radney comes down, and milks the cow, and does some of my other little chores.
Margaret, p. 388.
Girl hunting is certainly among our most formidable chores.
Mrs. Kirkland, Western Clearings.
The editor of the Boston Daily Star, in relinquishing his editorial charge, gives the following notice:
Any one wishing corn hoed, gardens weeded, wood sawed, coal pitched in, paragraphs written, or small 'chores' done with dispatch and on reasonable terms, will please make immediate application to the retiring editor.