Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An inclined trough, passage, or channel through or down which things may pass.
  • noun A narrow, usually fenced passage for horses or cattle.
  • noun A usually straight extension of one side of an oval racetrack, used to start certain longer races so that the finish line can be kept on a straightaway in front of the stands or clubhouse.
  • noun A gated stall that is used to hold and release animals into an open area, especially horses and steers being ridden in a rodeo.
  • noun A waterfall or rapid.
  • noun A parachute.
  • intransitive verb To convey or deposit by a chute.
  • intransitive verb To go or descend by a chute.
  • idiom (out of the chute) At the very beginning; right away.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To send down or through a chute, as logs.
  • noun An inclined trough or tube along which things can slide from a higher to a lower level; a shoot.
  • noun A waterfall or rapid; a fall over which timber is floated.
  • noun An opening in a dam through which to float timber.
  • noun In Louisiana and along the Mississippi, a bayou or side channel; also, a narrow passage between two islands, or between an island and the shore.
  • noun In mining. See shoot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A framework, trough, or tube, upon or through which objects are made to slide from a higher to a lower level, or through which water passes to a wheel.
  • noun See Shoot.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A framework, trough, or tube, upon or through which objects are made to slide from a higher to a lower level, or through which water passes to a wheel.
  • noun parachute

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun sloping channel through which things can descend
  • verb jump from an airplane and descend with a parachute
  • noun rescue equipment consisting of a device that fills with air and retards your fall

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, a fall, alteration (influenced by chu) of Old French cheoite, from feminine past participle of cheoir, to fall, from Vulgar Latin *cadēre, from Latin cadere; see kad- in Indo-European roots. Sense 3, short for parachute.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French chute

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