chaff
Definitions
-
WordNet 3.6
- v chaff be silly or tease one another "After we relaxed, we just kidded around"
- n chaff foil in thin strips; ejected into the air as a radar countermeasure
- n chaff material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds
- ***
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
-
- Chaff Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything. "The chaff and ruin of the times."
- Chaff Light jesting talk; banter; raillery.
- Chaff Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle. "By adding chaff to his corn, the horse must take more time to eat it. In this way chaff is very useful."
- Chaff The glumes or husks of grains and grasses separated from the seed by threshing and winnowing, etc. "So take the corn and leave the chaff behind.""Old birds are not caught with caff ."
- Chaff (Bot) The scales or bracts on the receptacle, which subtend each flower in the heads of many Compositæ, as the sunflower.
- v. t Chaff To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language; to quiz. "Morgan saw that his master was chaffing him.""A dozen honest fellows . . . chaffed each other about their sweethearts."
- v. i Chaff To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
- ***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
-
- n chaff The glumes or husks of wheat, oats, or other grain and grasses, especially when separated from the seed by threshing and winnowing.
- n chaff Straw cut small for the food of cattle.
- n chaff Figuratively, paltry refuse; worthless matter, especially that which is light and apt to be driven by the wind.
- n chaff In botany, the scales or bracts which subtend the individual flowers in the heads of many Compositæ.
- n chaff A name among fishermen for the finer kinds of seaweed.
- chaff To assail with sarcastic banter or raillery; banter; make game of; ridicule; tease; quiz; worry. [Colloq.]
- chaff Synonyms See taunt.
- chaff To use bantering or ironical language by way of ridicule, teasing, or quizzing.
- n chaff Banter; sarcastic or teasing raillery.
- chaff To cut into chaff. See chaff, n., 2.
- chaff To mix with chaff.
- chaff To furnish with chaff.
- ***
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
-
- n Chaff chaf a general name for the husks of corn or other grain as threshed or winnowed: refuse, or worthless matter: light banter, badinage
- v.t Chaff to banter, or tease, by some raillery
- n Chaff and p.adj. Chaff′ing
- ***
Quotations
-
“As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.” -
“Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.”
Idioms
Separate the wheat from the chaff - When you separate the wheat from the chaff, you select what is useful or valuable and reject what is useless or worthless.
***
Etymology
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
AC. ceaf,; akin to D. kaf, G. kaff,
Usage
In literature:
In such a mass of tradition, great care is taken to separate the chaff from the wheat.
"Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2" by Charles Dudley Warner
Quite as popular, with the small girls, are tiny pestles with which they industriously pound rice chaff, in imitation of their mothers.
"The Tinguian" by Fay-Cooper Cole
Not how much chaff is in you; but whether you have any wheat.
"Sacred Books of the East" by Various
Old birds are not to be caught with chaff.
"My Book of Indoor Games" by Clarence Squareman
Some find their sheets strewed with chaff or cockle-burs, some find no sheets at all.
"Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science" by Various
With caricature and caustic chaff; He!
"Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891" by Various
But salt, just like chaff and the plainly spread net, Was never regarded as promising yet.
"Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891" by Various
The other boys helped a little, but not did cease to chaff him.
"Two Little Savages" by Ernest Thompson Seton
Strewing straw or chaff, 294.
"Notes & Queries, Index of Volume 1" by Various
I wish a recleaned mixture, and no chaff in it.
"The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming." by Ellen Eddy Shaw
***
In poetry:
While on the land
With gusty laugh
From a full hand
He scattered chaff.
With gusty laugh
From a full hand
He scattered chaff.
"A Sower" by Sir Henry Newbolt
They fly like chaff before the wind,
Before thine angry breath;
The angel of the Lord behind
Pursues them down to death.
Before thine angry breath;
The angel of the Lord behind
Pursues them down to death.
"Psalm XXXV: Now Plead My Cause, Almighty God" by Isaac Watts
Not so the ungoodly race,
They no such blessings find;
Their hopes shall flee, like empty chaff
Before the driving wind.
They no such blessings find;
Their hopes shall flee, like empty chaff
Before the driving wind.
"Psalm I: The Man Is Ever Blessed" by Isaac Watts
How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?
--For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.
Of this unspotted tree?
--For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.
"A Praise of his Lady" by Anonymous British
At midnight, in the weary waste,
In sorrows sat the pair;
She chaff'd his shivering hands, and wrung
The water from his hair.
In sorrows sat the pair;
She chaff'd his shivering hands, and wrung
The water from his hair.
"A Tale" by John Logan
Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon,
With chaff of words, the garb he wore,
As corn-husks when the ear is gone
Are rustled all the more?
With chaff of words, the garb he wore,
As corn-husks when the ear is gone
Are rustled all the more?
"My Namesake" by John Greenleaf Whittier
In news:
Businesses choosing to tap an outside agency can use these questions to help separate the chaff from the Chiat/Days.
Separating wheat from chaff John Watson Commentary.
Separating Wheat, Chaff In Health Care Ruling.
Separating wheat from chaff at the Rollag threshing festival.
Chaff Trails & N Applications.
Sifting the Psychological Wheat from the Chaff .
Sorting the Tweet from the Chaff .
Roger Mitchell Cast as Chaff in 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'.
OPC Certification creates a solid quality baseline for interoperability that separates the wheat from the chaff, according to OPC specialist Eric Murphy, and serious end-users will demand nothing less.
Increased volatility, negative roll yields and a correlation spike with equities are forcing institutional investors to separate the wheat of commodities strategies from the chaff.
During the roasting process, the outer layer of organic material called chaff is burned off.
They separate the wheat from the chaff.
Akron milling lore separates wheat from chaff.
The audition rounds are over and 'X Factor' is moving full steam ahead with the boot camp phase, where the men will be separated from the boys, the women from the girls, the musical wheat from the chaff.
The workshops will also feature an update on the REC 's Flexible Work Commission Report and a legal update (including AWR) by Paul Chamberlain, partner and Head of Employment Law at Brabners Chaffe Street solicitors.
***
In science:
To separate the wheat from the chaff, a number of collections or “batteries” of tests, comparing statistical properties of pseudo-random sequences to those expected for a true random process, have been suggested and extensively used in the past.
Random number generators for massively parallel simulations on GPU
When any reader can submit a review, separating the ‘wheat from the chaff ’ becomes a high priority to validly assess the quality of a manuscript.
An Algorithm to Determine Peer-Reviewers
Results indicate that people cannot tell great art from chaff when the name of a great artist is detached from it.
Theory of citing
When a strict delay constraint of ∆ is imposed, we design the relaying strategy using the Bounded Greedy Match (BGM) algorithm proposed in under the context of chaff insertion in stepping stone attacks.
Anonymous Networking amidst Eavesdroppers
BGM algorithm inserts the least chaff fraction for any pair of point processes.
Anonymous Networking amidst Eavesdroppers
***