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/tʃæf/ Listen

noun

Chaff n.

The glumes or husks of grains and grasses separated from the seed by threshing and winnowing, etc. "So take the corn and leave the chaff behind." "Old birds are not caught with caff."

Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything. "The chaff and ruin of the times."

Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle. "By adding chaff to his corn, the horse must take more time to eat it. In this way chaff is very useful."

Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.

(Bot.) The scales or bracts on the receptacle, which subtend each flower in the heads of many Compositae, as the sunflower.

Chaff cutter, a machine for cutting, up straw, etc., into "chaff" for the use of cattle.

verb

Chaff v. t. To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language; to quiz. "Morgan saw that his master was chaffing him." "A dozen honest fellows... chaffed each other about their sweethearts."

Chaff v. i. (past & past part. chaffed; pres. part. chaffing) To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.

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Etymology of 'Chaff'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books

... more the perplexed pair threshed away, striving to winnow the chaff from the pure grain in Aunt Sharley's nature, and the upshot was that Emmy Lou had a headache and Mildred had a little spell of crying, and they agreed that never had there been such a paradox of part saint and part sinner, part black ogre and part black angel, as their Auntie was, created into ...

— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... the Maroccan town: see The Mines of Midian p. 74 for a note on the name. Near Gibraltar is a fuimara called Guadalajara i.e. Wady al-Khara, of dung. "Barts" is evidently formed "on the weight" of "Bartt;" and his metonym is a caricature, a chaff ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day 'ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not ...

— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... him," said Jacqueline, as if taking her under her protection. "He is nothing but a tease; what he says is only chaff. But I might as well talk Greek to her," she added, shrugging her shoulders. "In the convent they don't know what to make of a joke. Only spare her at least, if you ...

— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... learning, progress, and common sense, we had such an inadequate idea of the responsibilities of government that we elected men to office who were incapable, simply because they had carried a gun or tripped over a sword! No, no. The shrewd Yankee and the calculating Hoosier are not caught with such chaff. They selected these officers as servants of the nation because the war had served to show what sort of men ...

— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

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