Word.ws English Dictionary

chaffer

/ˈtʃæfə/US/ˈt͡ʃæfɚ/

chaffer verb: to haggle or barter.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To haggle or barter.
    • To chaffer for preferment with his gold.1700, [John] Dryden, “The Character of a Good Parson; Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
    • 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?1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Alteration”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 25
  2. (transitive) To buy.
  3. (informal, intransitive) To talk much and idly; to chatter.
    • The Dartie within him made him chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the Cambridgeshire.1922, John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga

Noun (1)

chaffer (countable and uncountable, plural chaffers)

  1. (uncountable) Bargaining; merchandise.
    • vittels, and other chaffer and merchandize were excéeding cheape: for at London a quarter of wheat was sold for two shillings1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC
  2. (countable, obsolete, slang) A person's mouth.
    • Moisten [or] damp your chaffer: take something to drink.

Noun (2)

chaffer (plural chaffers)

  1. The upper sieve of a cleaning shoe in a combine harvester, where chaff is removed.
    • A fan blows air through the chaffer to remove lightweight material known as chaff.2003, William W. Casady, “Grain Harvesting Systems”, in Dennis R. Heldman, editor, Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food, and Biological Engineering, →ISBN, page 449
  2. A person who or thing that chaffs.

Synonyms of chaffer

All synonyms of chaffer

Forms of chaffer

Verb
third-person singular presentchaffers
present participlechaffering
past participlechaffered
pastchaffered
Noun
pluralchaffers

Origin of chaffer

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

From chaff + -er.

Words formed from chaffer

Words that rhyme with chaffer

Questions about chaffer

What does chaffer mean?
Chaffer means to haggle or barter.
What part of speech is chaffer?
Chaffer can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce chaffer?
Chaffer is pronounced /ˈtʃæfə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of chaffer?
The past tense of chaffer is chaffered.

Words near chaffer in the dictionary

  1. chaffbags
  2. chaffed
  3. Chaffee
  4. Chaffee County
  5. Chaffees
  6. chaffer
  7. chaffered
  8. chafferer
  9. chafferers
  10. chafferies
  11. chaffering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chaffer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chaffer.wav.

Cite this entry: “chaffer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chaffer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.