Chaff meaning

chăf
The definition of chaff refers to useless things, grain husks and fine-cut straw, or light-hearted spoken exchanges.

Trash that you do not want is an example of chaff.

Wheat grains found after threshing is an example of chaff.

Light-hearted teasing and banter is an example of chaff.

noun
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To chaff is to tease, especially in a light-hearted way.

When you joke around with someone and tease him, this is an example of a situation where you chaff.

verb
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Thin dry bracts or scales, especially:
  • The dry bracts enclosing mature grains of wheat and some other cereal grasses, removed during threshing.
  • The scales or bracts borne on the receptacle among the small individual flowers of many plants in the composite family.
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Finely cut straw or hay used as fodder.
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Trivial or worthless matter.

Ignored the picky, unimportant criticisms that were just a lot of chaff.

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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.
noun
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To make fun of in a good-natured way; tease.

Chaffed him for forgetting the appointment.

verb
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To engage in playful teasing.
verb
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Good-natured teasing; banter.
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The husks of wheat or other grain separated in threshing or winnowing.
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Fine-cut hay or straw, used for fodder.
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Anything regarded as worthless.
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Tiny strips of metal foil used to confuse enemy radar.
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Good-natured teasing or joking; banter.
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The bracts that enclose the individual florets on the receptacles of certain composite heads.
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To tease or ridicule in a good-natured way.
verb
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The inedible parts of a grain-producing plant.

To separate out the chaff, early cultures tossed baskets of grain into the air and let the wind blow away the lighter chaff.

noun
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By extension, any excess or unwanted material, resource, or person; anything worthless.

There are plenty of good books on the subject, but take care to separate the wheat from the chaff.

noun
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Loose material dropped from aircraft specifically to interfere with radar detection.
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Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle.
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Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
noun
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(intransitive) To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
verb
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To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language; to quiz.
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Origin of chaff

  • Middle English chaf from Old English ceaf
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • Possibly alteration of chafe or chaff
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • Old English ceaf; akin to West Frisian tsjêf, Dutch kaf, German Kaff.
    From Wiktionary

Chaff Sentence Examples

  • These are thrown into a basket containing chaff made from the capsules.

  • acus, chaff, comes also the distinct meaning of "mixed with chaff."

  • Winnowing was done by women, who tossed the grain into the air with small wooden boards, the chaff being blown away by the winds.

  • I have champed up all that chaff about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth."

  • Shipping opium is distinguished by its soft character and clean paste, containing very little debris, or chaff, as it is technically called.

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