The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chaffer \Chaff"er\, n. One who chaffs.
Chaffer \Chaf"fer\, n. [OE. chaffare, cheapfare; AS. ce['a]p a
bargain, price + faru a journey; hence, originally, a going
to barain, to market. See Cheap, and Fare.]
Bargaining; merchandise. [Obs.]
--Holished.
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.
Chaffer \Chaf"fer\, v. t.
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To buy or sell; to trade in.
He chaffered chairs in which churchmen were set.
--Spenser. To exchange; to bandy, as words.
--Spenser.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. Bargaining; merchandise. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To haggle or barter. 2 To talk much and idly; to chatter. Etymology 2
n. (context agriculture English) The upper sieve of a cleaning shoe in a combine harvester, where chaff is removed
WordNet
v. wrangle (over a price, terms of an agreement, etc.); "Let's not haggle over a few dollars" [syn: haggle, higgle, huckster]
talk socially without exchanging too much information; "the men were sitting in the cafe and shooting the breeze" [syn: chew the fat, shoot the breeze, chat, confabulate, confab, chitchat, chatter, natter, gossip, jaw, claver, visit]
Wikipedia
Chaffer is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
- Ross Chaffer, Australian sprint canoeist
- Norman Chaffer, Australian businessman
- Don and Lori Chaffer, founding members of the band Waterdeep
Usage examples of "chaffer".
Ikey was as natural a part of the chaffering, quarrelling humanity who lived in the rookeries among the slaughterhouses, cesspools and tanneries as anyone ever born in the square mile known to be the heartbeat of London Town.
Am I a wanton that I stand at speech And chaffer mouthings with a daffish churl?
I had the strength of mind to despise his violence, and telling him dryly that I did not chaffer I turned my back on him and went my way.
A jiner today can never fetch such mastie straiks as these, he must send strags upaland to scaff amang the rammel, an plaister all together oot o skifting his grandfaither would hae tossed inti the chaffer.
He broke off to greet her, but resumed his chaffering at once, while she stood listening and taking in his appearance, for he was quite splendid in a new blue supertunic and a pair of soft leather boots.
The chaffering began in corn-shops, where the lawless agreements for delivery of unsown harvests changed hands ten times in the hour, and bills on Rome, scrawled over with endorsements, outsped currency as well as outwitted the revenue men.
The vine-screened window in which they now talked overlooked the neighboring Temple house, a dignified sentry at the point where the leisured street forsook the chaffer of the town to climb amidst arching elms and maples, above whose gaudy autumn masses rose the dome of the courthouse and the spires of many churches.
Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play.
I had the strength of mind to despise his violence, and telling him dryly that I did not chaffer I turned my back on him and went my way.
He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and noisily as it chaffered and bargained.
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.
But ragged shapes crowded this quarter with turmoil: milling and yelling children, women overburdened with jugs and baskets, men plying their trades, day laborer, muledriver, carter, scavenger, artisan, butcher, tanner, priest, minstrel, vendor chanting or chaffering about his pitiful wares.
Stewards were chaffering with peddlers, mostly women, carrying fruits, vegetables, and some fish in baskets.
And because she never gossiped or quarrelled, or chaffered in the market, but went without what she could not afford, the people called her a witch, and would have done her many an ill turn if they had not been afraid of her.