Chapoo

English

A diagram of the "Capture of Chapoo" in 1842.

Etymology

A romanization of Mandarin Chinese 乍浦 (Zhàpǔ, “sudden bank”). Compare Wade-Giles romanization Cha4-p'u3.

Proper noun

Chapoo

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of Zhapu.
   • 1842 November 26, “GEOGRAPHY OF THE DESPATCHES.”, in The Spectator‎^[1], number 752, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1139, column 2:

     Shanghai is situated on this river, about twelve miles above Woosung; and the river is navigable for steam-boats forty-seven miles higher up—to the point where it issues from the small lake on the south of the canal. Chapoo, the town taken by the British immediately before the attack upon Woosung, is on the north side of the gulf of Che-kiang, about midway between its north cape and its innermost recess. Shanghai is the great emporium of the trade of this district with the tea-provinces on the South, with the province of Shantung and the coast of the Mantchoo Tartars on the North.

   • 2007, Dan Simmons, The Terror‎^[2] (Fiction), Little, Brown and Company, published 2009, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 300:

     The dashing lad — twenty-nine at the time — had used rockets to drive the Chinese off the hilltops of Tzekee and Segoan, used rockets again to drive them out of Chapoo, fought ashore at the Battle of Woosung, and returned to his expertise with rockets during the capture of Ching-Kiang-Fu.