chaffing

English

Adjective

chaffing

1. Pertaining to rubbing and abrasion.
   • 2009, Glenn P. Corbett, Fire Engineering's Handbook for Firefighter I and II, page 418:

     This chaffing block has an obvious channel for fire hose and straps to attach it to the hose .

   • 2011, Justin McLachlan, Time Up, page 152:

     He had sand in his hair, his ears, his underwear. It was all very chaffing, and he wanted a shower.

   • 2012, Dale McMillan, Living Off the Land, page 12:

     The clothes required carefully rinsing, since lye soap left in the clothes was very chaffing to the skin.

2. Characterized by teasing and joking.
   • 1872, J.C. Bates·, Report of the proceedings and arguments in the Probate Court of the City and County of San Francisco, State of California On the Trial to Admit to Provate the Last Will and Testament of Horace Hawes, page 365:

     Concede all that to be true, and at the same time he is a man of exceeding vanity and egotism, fully confident of his own capacity, and judgment and superiority to other people, and he should make the remark in a chaffing or jesting way , that Jesus Christ was a good man, but he was smarter than Christ, would consider that expression standing alone, evidence of insanity ?

   • 1896, William John Fitz-Patrick, Memories of Father Healy of Little Bray, page 318:

     Healy was in a very chaffing mood among his brother priests—complimented one on having been recently called to the Chapter , and , addressing another Pastor not so favoured , who possessed a house - organ of such neat workmanship that it was said a great hierarch once called to see it, exclaimed: 'Present that organ of yours as an offering, and you'll soon be as red about the gills as any of them.'

   • 2023, Cameron Hazlehurst, ‎Christine Woodland, A Liberal Chronicle in Peace and War, page 427:

     The P.M. at Bridge afterwards was in a very chaffing mood.

3. Of or for chaffing (cutting hay or straw into small lengths)
   • 1919, Veterinary Journal and Annals of Comparative Pathology, page 59:

     The quantity of "seeds" and dust produced at a chaffing depot is variable , depending upon the nature of the hay cut and the proportion of straw added.

   • 1929, The Poona Agricultural College Magazine - Volumes 21-23, page 57:

     The human labour naturally is tired in chaffing work by using ordinary chaff-cutters.

   • 2011, Henry Williamson, Lucifer Before Sunrise:

     During that hard weather the very last reserve set of cogs of the chaffing machine in the High Barn were broken, by the old, old error of not declutching before changing gear.

Derived terms

• chaffingly

 

Verb

chaffing

1. present participle and gerund of chaff

Noun

chaffing (countable and uncountable, plural chaffings)

1. The act by which somebody is chaffed; a teasing.
   • 1883, Edward Payson Roe, His Sombre Rivals:

     Grace had made Graham laugh many a time by her inimitable descriptions of the quaint tilts and chaffings of these graybeards, as each urged the views of his favorite journals […]