chaff

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English

Etymology

From Middle English chaf, from Old English ċeaf, from Proto-West Germanic *kaf. Cognate with Scots caff, Saterland Frisian Sääf, West Frisian tsjêf, Dutch kaf, German Low German Kaff, regional German Kaff.

Pronunciation

Noun

chaff (usually uncountable, plural chaffs)

  1. The inedible parts of a grain-producing plant.
    Coordinate term: bran
    To separate out the chaff, early cultures tossed baskets of grain into the air and let the wind blow away the lighter chaff.
  2. Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle.
    • 1831, William Youatt, The Horse, page 130:
      By adding chaff to his corn, the horse must take more time to eat it, and time is given for the commencement of digestion, before fermentation can occur. In this way chaff is very useful, especially after long fasts.
  3. (figurative) Any excess or unwanted material, resource, or person; anything worthless.
  4. Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
  5. (military) Loose material, e.g. small strips of aluminum foil dropped from aircraft, intended to interfere with radar detection.
    Synonym: window
    Hyponym: rope

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Verb

chaff (third-person singular simple present chaffs, present participle chaffing, simple past and past participle chaffed)

  1. (intransitive) To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
  2. (transitive) To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language.
    Synonym: quiz
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 10, in The History of Pendennis. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      We were talking about it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks—until he was as mad as a hatter.
    • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:
      I’ve fallen asleep on my step as the ’bus was going on, and almost fallen off. I have often to put up with insolence from vulgar fellows, who think it fun to chaff a cad, as they call it.
    • 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 148:
      Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying, rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the faint-hearted
  3. (transitive) To cut up (straw or hay) for use as cattle feed.

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Middle English

Noun

chaff

  1. alternative form of chaf