Word.ws English Dictionary

chaffern

chaffern noun: a vessel for heating water.

Noun

chaffern (plural chafferns)

  1. (obsolete) A vessel for heating water.
    • The wards should be daily fumigated by means of thus, benzoin, or other aromatics, or wetted gunpowder thrown on burning coals, put in an irot pot or chaffern, or with the steams of warm vinegar placed in the middle of the ward.1780, Donald Monro, Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health of Soldiers, page 102
    • A glass globe is then to be inverted over the mouth of the matrass, and the heat of a charcoal-chaffern being applied, iodine will sublime in great abundance.1832, William Woodville, Medical Botany, page 114

Forms of chaffern

pluralchafferns

Origin of chaffern

A modification of chafer (“vessel for heating water”) after words like cistern and lantern.

Questions about chaffern

What does chaffern mean?
Chaffern means a vessel for heating water.
What part of speech is chaffern?
Chaffern is a noun.
What is the plural of chaffern?
The plural of chaffern is chafferns.

Words near chaffern in the dictionary

  1. chafferer
  2. chafferers
  3. chafferies
  4. chaffering
  5. chafferings
  6. chaffern
  7. chafferns
  8. chaffers
  9. chaffery
  10. chaffie
  11. chaffier

Source and license

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