Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Chaff   /tʃæf/   Listen
noun
Chaff  n.  
1.
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."
2.
Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything. "The chaff and ruin of the times."
3.
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."
4.
Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
5.
(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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books



... breakfasts as far as Chatelherault, Loches, Vendome, and Blois. This said man, an old fox, perfect in his business, never lighted lamps in the day time, knew how to skin a flint, charged for wool, leather, and feathers, had an eye to everything, did not easily let anyone pay with chaff instead of coin, and for a penny less than his account would have affronted even a prince. For the rest, he was a good banterer, drinking and laughing with his regular customers, hat in hand always before the persons furnished with plenary indulgences entitled Sit nomen Domini ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... this Head, is to consider the Age of your Mistress: Old Birds are not taken with Chaff; and an old Hare ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding

... thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the sea—meaning to swim on shore. King ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... a cad with my chaff,' he said to himself, 'but hang me if I see how to help her. And I ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... Collection, which the Basel Museum bought long afterwards. And such was the love of both that they included, perhaps deliberately, much that has small probability of claim to be Holbein's work. They would reject nothing attributed to him; thinking a bushel of chaff well worth housing if it might yield one genuine grain. And in view of these expressive facts, it is hardly necessary to argue in behalf of the tradition that more than a conventional friendship bound the two young men together,—printer's son and painter's ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com