chaffer

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtʃæfə/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (US) enPR: chăfʹər, IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃæfɚ/
• Rhymes: -æfə(ɹ)

From Middle English chapfare (“bargain, trade”, noun), equivalent to cheap + fare.

chaffer (third-person singular simple present chaffers, present participle chaffering, simple past and past participle chaffered)

1. (intransitive) To haggle or barter.
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “The Character of a Good Parson; Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     To chaffer for preferment with his gold.

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Alteration”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 25:

     Walter declined the invitation, precisely because he wanted a dinner. He was, also, conscious that he had made a very bad bargain; but how could he chaffer and dispute about things so precious as the contents of those pages which were the very outpourings of his heart?

   • 1866, “Mr. Dod's Six Shots”, in Harper's Magazine‎, volume 32, page 208:

     While he is at the front end selling calico to some wearisome old lady, sunbonneted and chaffering, a mischievous boy is very apt to be pocketing lumps of sugar for profit, or starting the faucet of a molasses barrel for fun at the other.

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

     But the people looked much like Caleb’s own. They wore dirty robes, chaffered at fruit stalls, spat, scratched.

2. (transitive) To buy.
3. To talk much and idly; to chatter.
   • 1922, John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga:

     The Dartie within him made him chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the Cambridgeshire.

• bargain
• barter
• haggle
• negotiate

chaffer (countable and uncountable, plural chaffers)

1. (uncountable) bargaining; merchandise
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC:

     vittels, and other chaffer and merchandize were excéeding cheape: for at London a quarter of wheat was sold for two shillings

2. (countable, slang, obsolete) A person's mouth.

   Moisten [or] damp your chaffer: take something to drink.

• (the mouth): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

From chaff +‎ -er.

chaffer (plural chaffers)

1. (agriculture) The upper sieve of a cleaning shoe in a combine harvester, where chaff is removed
   • 2003, William W. Casady, “Grain Harvesting Systems”, in Dennis R. Heldman, editor, Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food, and Biological Engineering‎, →ISBN, page 449:

     A fan blows air through the chaffer to remove lightweight material known as chaff.

2. A person or thing which chaffs.

• blower
• cleaning sieve

• IPA^(key): /ˈχafɛr/

chaffer

1. Aspirate mutation of caffer.