Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To make fun of in a good-natured way; tease.
- intransitive verb To engage in playful teasing.
- noun Good-natured teasing; banter.
- noun Botany Thin dry bracts or scales, especially.
- noun The dry bracts enclosing mature grains of wheat and some other cereal grasses, removed during threshing.
- noun The scales or bracts borne on the receptacle among the small individual flowers of many plants in the composite family.
- noun Finely cut straw or hay used as fodder.
- noun Trivial or worthless matter.
- noun Strips of metal, foil, or glass fiber with a metal content, cut into various lengths and having varying frequency responses, that are used to reflect electromagnetic energy as a radar countermeasure. These materials, usually dropped from aircraft, also can be deployed from shells or rockets.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The glumes or husks of wheat, oats, or other grain and grasses, especially when separated from the seed by threshing and winnowing.
- noun Straw cut small for the food of cattle.
- noun Figuratively, paltry refuse; worthless matter, especially that which is light and apt to be driven by the wind.
- noun In botany, the scales or bracts which subtend the individual flowers in the heads of many Compositæ.
- noun A name among fishermen for the finer kinds of seaweed.
- To assail with sarcastic banter or raillery; banter; make game of; ridicule; tease; quiz; worry. [Colloq.]
- Synonyms See
taunt . - To use bantering or ironical language by way of ridicule, teasing, or quizzing.
- noun Banter; sarcastic or teasing raillery.
- To cut into chaff. See
chaff , n., 2. - To mix with chaff.
- To furnish with chaff.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
- noun The glumes or husks of grains and grasses separated from the seed by threshing and winnowing, etc.
- noun Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything.
- noun Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle.
- noun Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
- noun (Bot.) The scales or bracts on the receptacle, which subtend each flower in the heads of many
Compositæ , as the sunflower. - noun a machine for cutting, up straw, etc., into “chaff” for the use of cattle.
- transitive verb To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language; to quiz.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
inedible parts of agrain -producing plant. - noun By extension, any excess or unwanted material, resource, or person; anything
worthless . - noun Loose material dropped from
aircraft specifically tointerfere withradar detection . - verb intransitive To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to
banter . - verb transitive To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language; to quiz.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds
- noun foil in thin strips; ejected into the air as a radar countermeasure
- verb be silly or tease one another
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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And the chaff is a great big huge gigantic pile all right!
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She would open the hankies every morning after her morning prayers and count out fifteen piles of eighteen cents, eighteen being the corresponding number to the Hebrew letters in the word chaff, meaning life.
My life as a woman Roseanne, Barr 1989
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But I do not know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in "chaff" does not at last bring the tone of mind down to the low level.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
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Your last argument about the wheat and the chaff is still unconvincing.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
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An effective way to separate the chaff from the wheat is word-of-mouth.
azd commented on the word chaff
note the verb form, meaning to tease good-naturedly; jest, banter.
February 23, 2007
pikachu commented on the word chaff
No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze.
-Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
March 19, 2011
dontcry commented on the word chaff
Very Maslowian.
March 19, 2011
dailyword commented on the word chaff
This word was used in an episode of "The Borgias." when Lucretizia was talking about Rome's poor.
June 23, 2012