The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chaffer \Chaf"fer\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Chaffered; p. pr. & vb. n. Chaffering.] [OE. chaffaren, fr. chaffare, chapfare, cheapfare, a bargaining. See Chaffer, n.]
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To treat or dispute about a purchase; to bargain; to haggle or higgle; to negotiate.
To chaffer for preferments with his gold.
--Dryden. To talk much and idly; to chatter.
--Trench.
Wiktionary
n. The act of one who chaffers. vb. (present participle of chaffer English)
Usage examples of "chaffering".
I bought the house on the beach while he was chaffering, and then I sold it him at a rise when the town was looking up--only to make him see.
Men carried on with their everyday lives and their bargaining and chaffering, but it was as though a heavy cloud hung over the quarter, so that even the flourishing sin shops were subdued and folk spoke in low voices over their wine.
Stewards were chaffering with peddlers, mostly women, carrying fruits, vegetables, and some fish in baskets.
He couldn't hear them through the sound of wind and wave, the creak and groan of timbers, and the high-pitched song of the rigging, but he'd heard them chaffering often enough to have a shrewd notion of what they were saying, and he shook his own head.
Lanterns hung everywhere, or so it seemed, throwing a clear light over the entire scene, and a cheerful bubble and froth of conversation, hammers, the chantey-like singing of the warehouse men, of harp music from the taverns and the chaffering of shoppers picking over potatoes, garlic, and apples at the grocers' stalls, filled their ears.
The chaffering with Brandark had distracted him from it for a few moments, but now it was back and worse than ever, and his ears flattened under his hood.
He now paid for it after considerable chaffering as to the odd pounds, which he succeeded in bringing to a successful termination.
Then after some chaffering on the subject it was decided between them that Mr Traffick should use his powerful influence with his father-in-law to give his daughter on her marriage -- say a hundred thousand pounds if it were possible, or sixty thousand pounds at the least.
Its piers bustled, men loading, unloading, fetching, bearing off, repairing, outfitting, dickering, arguing, chaffering, a tumble and chaos that somehow got its jobs done.
But while the chaffering went on, Hathawulf, guided by Ulrica, had other men going around.
Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle.
Off I set to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at 1000 pounds apiece.