An i-chord of a cycle or path is an edge whose endpoints are a distance i ≥ 2 apart along the cycle or path. Motivated by many standard graph classes being describable by the existence of chords, we investigate what happens when i-chords are required for specific values of i. Results include the following: A graph is strongly chordal if and only if, for i ∈ {4,6}, every cycle C with |V (C)| ≥ i has an (i/2)-chord. A graph is a threshold graph if and only if, for i ∈ {4,5}, every path P with |V (P)| ≥ i has an (i−2)-chord.