Champ is a friendly, informal way to refer to a champion or winner. When your coach calls you champ after a good practice, they're acknowledging your effort and attitude. Parents might call their kids champ as an affectionate nickname, like “Good morning, champ!” The word carries warmth and encouragement, whether someone has actually won something or not.

In sports, a champ is someone who has won a championship: the boxer who holds the heavyweight title, the team that won the state tournament, or the chess player who took first place. Boxing especially uses this term: fans talk about the “reigning champ” or the “former champ” when discussing title holders.

The word can also be a verb meaning to chew or bite noisily and eagerly. A hungry horse might champ at its bit (the metal piece in its mouth), which is where we get the phrase champing at the bit. This phrase describes someone who's eager and impatient to start something, like a runner champing at the bit before the starting gun fires.