Brewer's: Chic

Fashionable; comme il faut; the mode. This is an archaic French word in vogue in the seventeenth century. It really is the Spanish chico, little, also a little boy, and chica, a little girl or darling. Similarly, wee in Scotch is a loving term of admiration and pride. (Chic is an abbreviation of the German geschickt, apt, clever.)

Juse de mots de l'art, je met en marge hic; J'espere avec le tems que j'entendrai le chic.

Les Satyres de Du Lorens, xii. p. 97.

Avoir le chic.
To have the knack of doing the thing smartly. Chicard and chicandard = elegant, de grand style, are very common expressions with artists.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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