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chaff

UK/t͡ʃæf/US/t͡ʃæf/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,626 of 15,258neutral

Chaff is the light husks blown away from the grain. Separate the wheat from the chaff, winnow the chaff, a cloud of chaff.

Winnowing throws the threshed crop into the air so the wind carries the chaff away and the heavier grain falls back, and the phrase about separating wheat from chaff comes straight from that. In warfare, chaff is metal strip dropped to confuse radar.

Green · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of chaff

  1. 1nounchaffThe light husks blown away from the grain.C1

    “After threshing, the barn floor was covered in chaff and straw.”

chaff is a husk.

Where it comes from

Old English ceaf names the husks, from a Germanic root.

  1. Proto-West Germanic

    *kaf

  2. Old English

    ċeaf

  3. Middle English

    chaf

  4. English, today

    chaff

From Middle English chaf, from Old English ċeaf, from Proto-West Germanic kaf. Cognate with Scots caff, stq Sääf, West Frisian tsjêf, Dutch kaf, German Low German Kaff, regional German Kaff.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Farm & Countryside

Practise this word

chaff in the wild

  • The chaff and grain are then separated by winnowing, and the chaff is discarded.

    Chaffing and winnowing

  • Winnowing is a process by which chaff is separated from grain.

    Winnowing

  • Dispersed chaff produces a large radar cross section intended to blind or disrupt radar systems.

    Chaff (countermeasure)

  • Modern military forces use chaff to distract active radar homing missiles from their targets.

    Chaff (countermeasure)

  • A chaff cutter is a mechanical device for cutting straw or hay into small pieces before being mixed together with other forage and fed to horses and cattle.

    Chaff cutter

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.