CHAFF • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Chaff

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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

... unfading verdure, while the name of the tyrant, like his vile body, shall moulder in the dust. Put your trust in the Lord of hosts, he is your strong tower, he is your helper and defense, he will guide and strengthen the arm of flesh, and scatter your enemies like chaff. ...

— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock

... amount of unwise desire to satisfy that feeling in fellow-creatures less seriously disposed have sustained him alive, in those baleful Historic Acherons and Stygian Fens, where he has had to dig and to fish so long, far away from the upper light!—Let me request all readers to blow that sorry chaff entirely out of their minds; and to believe nothing on the subject except what they ...

— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great--Birth And Parentage.--1712. • Thomas Carlyle

... with our reason, because, as there is little to give it birth, there is nothing to cheek it or recall us to our senses in the prospect of consequences. We take up and rend in pieces the mere toys of humour, as the gusts of wind take up and whirl about chaff and stubble. Passion plays the tyrant, in a grand tragi-comic style, over the Lilliputian difficulties and petty disappointments it has to encounter, gives way to all the fretfulness of grief and all ...

— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... 'twon't disappoint you! There's a good deal of rubbish here, but a scattering of grain among the chaff. Ah, messieurs! Good-evening!" ...

— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... a very great man, but for him to eliminate theological chaff entirely was impossible. So we find that when he was about to speak, red fire filled the building as soon as he arose. It was all a little like the alleged plan of the late Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage, who used ...

— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

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