Word Direct Answers

What does "chaff" mean?

Chaff: Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything. The chaff and ruin of the times. Shak.

Additional senses

  1. 2.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. Ywatt.
  2. 3.Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
  3. 4.(Bot.) The scales or bracts on the receptacle, which subtend each flower in the heads of many Compositæ, as the sunflower. Gray. Chaff cutter, a machine for cutting, up straw, etc., into "chaff" for the use of cattle.
  4. 5.To use light, idle lagnguage by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
  5. 6.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. Thackeray. A dozen honest fellows . . . chaffed each other about their sweethearts. C. Kingsley.

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