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Chaff   /tʃæf/   Listen
Chaff

noun
1.
Material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds.  Synonyms: husk, shuck, stalk, straw, stubble.
2.
Foil in thin strips; ejected into the air as a radar countermeasure.



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"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books



... himself, but he must have had a kind heart. He took me by the hand and made me carry his broom and brushes. Nobody took much notice of us, the dawn was only just breaking, and the passages were very dark and deserted; only once some soldiers began to chaff him about me: 'C'est ma fille—quoi?' he said roughly. I very nearly laughed then, only I had the good sense to restrain myself, for I knew that my freedom, and perhaps my life, depended on my not betraying myself. My grimy, tattered guide took me with him right through the interminable ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... sails the silv'ry moon, O'er forests dark and still, Now far, now near, ever sad and clear, Comes the plaint of the whip-poor-will; With song and laugh, and with kindly chaff, We startle the birds above, Then rest tired heads on our cedar beds, To dream of the ones ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... into him, and ruled his hand with a whirlwind power which he could no more withstand than the chaff can ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... old fellow! I've made a mistake," thought Gaudissart, "I must catch him with other chaff. I'll try humbug No. 1. Not at all," he said aloud, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... surrender in a few days; but they told me, as near as I can now remember, "We regret to leave you, but we have to obey orders." The most ignorant private in the whole army saw everything that we had been fighting for for four years just scattered like chaff to the winds. All the Generals resigned, and those who did not resign were promoted; colonels were made brigadier-generals, captains were made colonels, and the private soldier, well, he deserted, don't you see? The private soldiers of the Army of Tennessee looked upon Hood as an over-rated general, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... nervous kind of way—"you want money, and you think I'm sure to give it, because it wouldn't be pleasant just now to have discreditable stories going about concerning the future Mrs. Ascott's relatives. You're quite right, it wouldn't. But I'm too old a bird to be caught with chaff for all that. You must rise very early in the morning ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... above injunction). Niyama-vidhi is that where when a thing could have been done in a number of ways, an order is made by the Veda which restricts us to following some definite alternative (e.g. though the chaff from the corn could be separated even by the nails, the order that "corn should be threshed" restricts us to the alternative of threshing as the only course acceptable for the sacrifice). In the niyama-vidhi that which is ordered is already known as possible but only as an ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... years taught me much—almost all that I ever learned, until the bitterer experiences of life brought it all to the test, and sifted out the chaff, and left me ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... fortunes be, This or that man's fall I fear not; Him I love that loveth me, For the rest a pin I care not. You are sad when others chaff, And grow merry as they laugh; I that hate it, and am free, Laugh ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... "None of your chaff, Richards. Just tell where the paper went, for in the loss of that lot of paper, as it proved, the bottom dropped out of the Treasury tub. On that paper was to have been printed our new issue of ten per cent, convertible, you know, and secured on that up-country cotton, which Kirby Smith had above ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... to make others laugh, Weary of gleaning for nothing but chaff, Of giving the whole, and receiving ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... judges. Had they been dressed as longshoremen, one would still have known them for possessors of the judicial temperament—men born to hold the balances and fitted and trained to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. So many eagle-beaked noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth-chopped, long-jowled faces, seen here together, made me think of what we are prone to regard as the highwater period of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... a couple o' cuts that you might lay your finger in. We an' the Haimigans had another set to on Thursday last, but be my sowl, we thrashed them into chaff—as we're well able to do. Will I have the pleasure of drinking your health, gintlemen? I think I see the right ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... a faint reflection of what must soon be reality. I looked round for her, but I could not see her. I started to walk across the room, threading my way through the merry company, who danced no longer, but stood about in groups, bandying chaff and compliments. Engrossed with one another, they hardly remembered to give me passage. Presently I came on William Adolphus, making himself very agreeable to one of his ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... remain at home, he grumbled and scolded, but settled down to it after a while. He busied himself with odd jobs, patched oilskins and mended wooden shoes for the fishermen and became quite brisk again. Maren could feel the improvement, when he good-naturedly began to chaff her ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... as he made it, that it was not a very able retort, but he was feeling too limp for satisfactory repartee. Criticisms in the Bureau, dealing with his alleged solidity of skull, he did not resent. He attributed them to man's natural desire to chaff his fellow-man. But to be unmasked by the general public in this way was another matter. It struck at the root ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... cause. No absurdity but we are asked to contemplate it with a seriously long face if it is sanctified by the aim of eliminating some temptation from the earth. Of any recognition of Temptation as the Divine method of burning Up the moral chaff of the world, not ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... fellow not to put up with a little mild chaff of that sort. He looked at the horizon, where the faint streaks of another dawn were beginning ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... There was much good-natured chaff flying about during the match, but no fighting and squabbling, save when a boundary hit was made, when the batsman always shouted "Three runs," and the bowler "No, only one." The scores were not high; but I remember that we won by three runs, that ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... Josephus saw this ram still battering the same place, and that the wall would quickly be thrown down by it, he resolved to elude for a while the force of the engine. With this design he gave orders to fill sacks with chaff, and to hang them down before that place where they saw the ram always battering, that the stroke might be turned aside, or that the place might feel less of the strokes by the yielding nature of the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... which I value myself, and found my hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows over ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... for a woman to go on so," returned the spinster, shaking her head in vehement agitation; "you may just tell her it's no use, my pa isn't likely to be caught with chaff like that." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... summer day's journey up hill and down dale, seals up the glimmering eyes with honey-dew, and stretches out, under the loving hands of nourrice Nature, the whole elongated animal economy, steeped in rest divine from the organ of veneration to the point of the great toe, be it on a bed of down, chaff, straw, or heather, in palace, hall, hotel, or hut? If in an inn, nobody interferes with you in meddling officiousness; neither landlord, bagman, waiter, chambermaid, boots;—you are left to yourself without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all the menials on the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... seemed as if that devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to catch ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... him as she repeated the last words with wondrous rapidity, and grinned at him, and grimaced and shook herself, till Doodles was altogether bewildered. If this was a Russian spy he would avoid such in future, and keep himself for the milder acerbities of Newmarket, and the easier chaff of his club. He looked up into her face at the present moment, striving to think of some words by which he might assist himself. He had as yet performed no part of his mission, but any such performance was now entirely out of the question. The woman had defied him, and had ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... chaff the one grain of truth was that Counsellor, released by Unziar on the authority of a telegram from Rallywood, had arrived by the first train in the morning and had at once proceeded to the British Legation. There he found Rallywood waiting for ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... And there are some hens in the neighborhood, and a few small farmers. Or if my bosom cries too loudly to be eased of its perilous stuff, I can chaff myself, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... brilliant man, but he had a fine instinct for other people's corns and prejudices. Everybody agreed that his remarks were able; there were no dissenting voices. He concluded with an apt and solemnly impressive reference to the wheat and the chaff, the garnering and the casting into furnace, leaving the application concerning the deceased wholly to his audience. That completed his success. When he sat down there was a ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... was an uneventful one; Frank escaped the first fight in which new-comers generally have to take part before they settle down in their new sphere. He was thoroughly good-tempered, and fully a match for any of his messmates in chaff, and he soon became a favourite in the fo'castle. He was always ready to take his share of the work, and was soon as much at home on the yards as the rest. The change and the newness of the life were very good ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... and grass beaten down and twisted by a terrible squall; here and there, between the distorted stalks, the muddy earth of the rice-swamp was visible; there were even little pools of water, produced by bits of the transparent lacquer on which tiny particles of gold seemed to float about like chaff in a thick liquid; two or three insects, which required a microscope to be well seen, were clinging in a terrified manner to the rushes, and the whole picture was no larger ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... life; such men in this day are spoken of as "too slow" as "weak-kneed," and "goody-goody" men. Let me recall that word, the fast and indecently-dressed "things," the animals of easy virtue, the "respectable" courtesans that flirt, chaff, gamble, and waltz with well-known high-class licentious lepers—such is the ideal of womanhood which a large proportion of our large city society ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... of action, Mr. Crow began operations at once. He went home and for nearly an hour worked over the list of subscribers to the fund, aided by his wife and daughters. Among them they separated the wheat from the chaff. At least twenty per cent. of the contributors were set aside in a separate group and labelled "no good." Ten per cent. were designated as "fairly good," and the remainder as "good." It must not be assumed that the division had anything to do with the Loop mystery. Mr. Crow was merely figuring ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... each afternoon, of strolling away from the rest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of the reefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the "quiet one." He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked so remote far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... for his activity in attempting to remove the figure. He knew that the selectmen would be obliged to clear the street of the obstruction, but a display of loyalty to the king might possibly inure to his benefit. Boys on their way to school began to chaff ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... brings forward the apocryphal book of Enoch, has been among my people in my absence, and many have been led after him. How humbling is this to them and to me! Lord, what is man! This may be blessed, 1st, to discover chaff which we thought to be wheat; 2nd, to lead some to greater distrust of themselves, when their eyes are opened: 3rd, to teach me the need of solidly instructing those who seem to have grace in ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... accuse me of attacking Athens before strangers;(1) we are by ourselves at the festival of the Lenaea; the period when our allies send us their tribute and their soldiers is not yet. Here is only the pure wheat without chaff; as to the resident strangers settled among us, they and the citizens are one, like the straw and ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... down to the core, Apples of ashes and fungus that fell into rot at a touch; Clusters of grapes in the garden blighted and sour on the vines; Wheat-fields that waved in the valley and promised a harvest of gold, Thrashing but chaff and weevil or cockle and shriveled cheat. Fair was the promise of spring-time; the harvest a harvest of lies: Fair was the promise of summer with Fortune clutched by the robe; Fair was the promise of autumn—a hollow harlot in red, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... great number of flowers grouped closely together to form one or more spikelets. The spikelets themselves may be either solitary or clustered. The individual flowers are covered by glumes and are arranged spirally on the axis. As the fruit matures, the glumes of the flowers become the "chaff" ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller

... call it," interposed Sir Norman, "to let you make your escape, as you most assuredly will do the moment you are out of our sight! No, no; we are too old birds to be caught with such chaff; and though the informer always gets off scot-free, your services deserve no such boon; for we could have found our way without your help! On with you, Sir Robber; and if your companions do kill you, console yourself with the ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... [and yet I think thou dost,] that there is any thing in these high flights among the sex?—Verily, Jack, these vehement friendships are nothing but chaff and stubble, liable to be blown away by the very wind that raises them. Apes, mere apes of us! they think the word friendship has a pretty sound with it; and it is much talked of—a fashionable word. And so, truly, a single ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... diligence. With more diligence than hope, in fact, for it was not a promising case. He had many interviews in his office with Seppi and me, and threshed out our testimony pretty thoroughly, thinking to find some valuable grains among the chaff, but the harvest was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... twisted paper or rag in the mixture, and rub each end of the trap with it, if a box trap, and put two or three drops on the bridge, leaving the paper or rag in the trap. Of whatever kind the trap is, it should be scented; but once in a twelvemonth will be sufficient. Then throw some chaff mixed with a little wheat about the bottom of the trap, in order to deceive the rats; for they are very sagacious, and will not enter a suspicious place. This will be necessary to be done only at the first time of setting the traps; ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... used to do at home, by his bedside. There was a sudden silence, the boys were astonished. Then some began to bully and try and stop him; others stood up for him. But the battle was won. The better minded boys saw what cowards they had been to give up what they knew was right for fear of chaff—one by one they gradually followed his example, and before that lad left school it was the rule and not the exception for the boys to ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous

... intelligence, and quite disposed to work; and at the other end one sees depart a corresponding set of young gentlemen who know nothing, and can do nothing, and are profoundly cynical about all intellectual things. And this is the result of the meal of chaff we serve out to them week after week; we collect it, we chop it up, we tie it up in packets; we spend hours administering it in teaspoons, and this is the end. I am myself the victim of this kind of education; I began Latin at seven and Greek ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... over and put them in barrels which should be headed; if the weather is not severe, let them remain in this cold situation as long as it will be safe, without their being frozen, then remove them to the cellar. Do not shut the windows till the severe weather comes on. Some persons pack them, in dry chaff, or sand, and put them in barrels and boxes in ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... more personal. When the preacher had prayed earnestly, and had retired from his rural sanctuary, the hidden and moveable part of his congregation were glad to get away. Some of the callous ones endeavoured afterwards to chaff Abe about the open-air service, but most of them were glad to say nothing on the subject, inwardly determining never again to venture profanely within the sacred precincts of ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... presented themselves to join it but two young Englishmen, one of whom was sick when he was not drunk, and the other of whom felt it to be a grievance on a campaign that a cup of tea could not be got at regular hours. How Sheehan did chaff ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... gentleman came to my church from one of the neighbouring towns; they were professors of religion, and members of some Dissenting body. My sermon that evening was upon wheat and chaff—the former was to be gathered into the garner, the latter burned with fire unquenchable. I said that we were all either one or the other—to be gathered or burned. They went away very angry, and complained one to another ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... "level head." He fails to realize the attraction and the dignity which are implied by what he is told of the nobleness of his father's calling, of the purifying and elevating influences of a daily intercourse with nature. He is not to be caught with this sort of chaff. His cultivation has not been of that aesthetic character that he has an especial drawing toward nobleness, or purity, or elevation. Nature, as he knows it, shows at times an unattractive side; and he fails to recognize precisely what is meant by Mother Earth as a source of dignity. ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring

... parse it as an adverb, because it comes between two words that are essentially in apposition. The equivalent Latin term quasi is called an adverb, but, in such a case, not very properly: as, "Et colles quasi pulverem pones;"—"And thou shalt make the hills as chaff."—Isaiah, xli, 15. So even, which in English is frequently a sign of emphatic repetition, seems sometimes to be rather a conjunction than an adverb: as, "I, even I, am ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... in Elise. "Patty looks like a chaff which the wind driveth away, but it would be a pretty strong old wind that could ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... criminal, any jealous murderer who was driven along by devilish passion. How the devil had played with him too!—with him, who was dedicated by the most solemn and sacred vows! And he had been as stubble before the wind—as chaff ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain; Who hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of the common law courts, the King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas, are of less direct historical value than those of the Chancery and the Exchequer. Extraordinarily bulky, they require a good deal of sifting to sort the wheat from the chaff. As yet a very small proportion of them has been printed, and few have even been calendared. A brief index of them has been compiled in the useful List of Plea Rolls (1894, P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, No. iv.). ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... particularly disliked them; he did not want to leave Fort Blizzard for any other spot on the habitable globe, and least of all did he want to go to the island possessions. But he said no word of complaint, took, with perfect good humor, the condolences and chaff of his brother officers at the mess dinner that night, and plunged ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... noticed that the two brothers were more silent when they were together. Perhaps they guessed that I had overheard something that night, and kept quiet when I was about. Some men would have amused themselves by trying to chaff them separately about the girl at home, and I suppose whichever one it was would have let the cat out of the bag if I had done that. But, somehow, I didn't like to. Yes, I was thinking of getting married myself at that time, so I had a sort of fellow-feeling for whichever one it was, that ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... non-essential and cling only to essential,—that his pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day shall be property, economy, education, and Christian character. To us just now these are the wheat, all else the chaff. The individual or race that owns the property, pays the taxes, possesses the intelligence and substantial character, is the one which is going to exercise the greatest control in government, whether he lives in the North or whether he lives ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington

... You know you always want to engineer a chap your own way and make him do just as you wish. The man who has the happiness of marrying you, Stephen, will have a hard row to hoe!' His 'chaff' with its utter want of refinement seemed to her, in her high-strung earnest condition, nothing short of brutal, and for a few seconds produced a feeling of repellence. But it is in the nature of things that opposition of any kind arouses the fighting instinct of a ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... sprang Light to her feet at thy trumpet's clang: At the first sound of that clarion blast, Foes like the chaff from the whirlwind passed— Passed to their doom: from that hour no more Triumphs their ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... agree on the idea of the divine; but no, that is not the question—the chaff must be separated from the good grain. The supernatural is miracle, and miracle is an objective phenomenon independent of all preceding casuality. Now, miracle thus understood cannot be proved experimentally; and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... such a kind lump of a heart of his own, and never took any of our chaff and banter unpleasantly. But I am quite sure that as far as he himself was concerned he never would have troubled himself about even the boat-house or the terraced gardens either, for every idle hour that he could spare he spent on the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... a blush to the cheek of the honourable Roman, when he reflected on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. Then the Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans of Hannibal; now the Italian militia were scattered like chaff before the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, but always with honour; now it was difficult to find among all the officers of rank a leader of even ordinary efficiency. Then the government preferred to take ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... sound came in here that had the same relation to a sigh that a sip has to a draught. "Well!—Mrs. Marrable nursed him up at Strides Cottage till he was fit to move—they were afraid about his back at first—and I used to ride over every morning. We used to chaff poor Georgy about his beautiful nurse.... Oh yes!—she was young enough for that. Woman well ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... and the deep voice of her husband, the iron-grey rifleshot. Mr. Stuart, the fat Birmingham clergyman, was thrashing out a question of piastres with a noisy donkey-boy, and the others were joining in with chaff and advice. Then the hubbub died away, the party from above came down the ladder, there were "good-nights," the shutting of doors, and the little steamer lay silent, dark, and motionless in the shadow of the high Haifa bank. And beyond this one point of civilisation and of comfort there ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... rapidly, as only the mind knows and comprehends in moments of stress and crisis; and before her knowledge, all ideas save one fell away like chaff before the wind. At all costs—in face of every obstacle—she must warn and save ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... &c 466; nicety, refinement; taste &c 850; critique, judgment; tact; discernment &c (intelligence) 498; acuteness, penetration; nuances. dope [Slang], past performances. V. discriminate, distinguish, severalize^; recognize, match, identify; separate; draw the line, sift; separate the chaff from the wheat, winnow the chaff from the wheat; separate the men from the boys; split hairs, draw a fine line, nitpick, quibble. estimate &c (measure) 466; know which is which, know what is what, know 'a hawk from ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... part of it, so to say—the noise of 'ole armies gettin' under arms. They must 'ave anticipated a night attack, I imagine. Most impressive. Then we 'eard a threshin'-machine. "Tutt! Tutt! This is childish!" says Lootenant Morshed. "We can't wait till they've finished cutting chaff for their horses. We must make 'em understand we're not to be trifled with. Expedite 'em with another ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... the logic-chaff is all laid long since, the question is substantial, not formal. If the Teutsch Ritterdom was actually at this time DEAD, actually stumbling about as a mere galvanized Lie beginning to be putrid,—then, sure enough, it behooved that somebody should bury it, to avoid pestilential effects ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... The peasants chaff Slimak for living in exile like a Sibiriak.[1] It is true, they say, that he lives nearer to the church, but on the other hand he has no one to ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... made this side of Jordan. Wal, that might be a little child, we'll say; if there's a thing handsomer than a field o' wheat, it's a little child. But bimeby comes reapin' and all, and then the trouble begins. First, it's all in the rough, ain't it, chaff and all, mixed together; and has to go through the thresher? Well, maybe that's the lickin's a boy's father gives him. He don't like 'em,—I can feel Father Belfort's lickin's yet,—but they git red of a sight ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... rout of their leader the whole fighting class, weighing some ten tons in battle trim, vanished like chaff before the spirit of one Freshie co-ed. By twos and threes they slouched ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... He was offended where he had no reason for offence—offended often because everyone did not recognise him as a member of an old Cornish family and the son of an ex-lord mayor of London. Often he felt obliged, in order to satisfy his own self-respect, to make the fact known; and the chaff, or indifference, or incredulity, with which his claims were received made him change his opinions regarding the "jolly company of actors." In fact, he was undoubtedly at this period of Denasia's career her very worst enemy; for whatever Denasia might be, Roland and his pretensions ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... inclined for the walk from Rye. The little train was nearly empty, and Joanna had a carriage to herself. She settled herself comfortably in a corner—it was good to be coming home, even as things were. The day was very sunny and still. The blue sky was slightly misted—a yellow haze which smelt of chaff and corn smudged together the sky and the marsh and the distant sea. The farms with their red and yellow roofs were like ripe apples ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... enclosures, each about twenty feet by forty or fifty, made of bamboo, which are placed on the bank of the river, and partly covered with water. In one corner of the enclosure is a small house, where the eggs are hatched by artificial heat, produced by rice-chaff in a state of of fermentation. It is not uncommon to see six or eight hundred ducklings all of the same age. There are several hundreds of these enclosures, and the number of ducks of all ages may be computed at millions. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... it, name one of the conditions of progress—is as necessary, aye, more so, than what you call good, to your and our elevation to higher spheres. It is not to be hated, but welcomed. It is the winnowing of the grain from the chaff. Children of truth, don't worry over what to you seems evil; soon you will be of us and will understand, and be rejoiced that what you call evil persists and works as leaven in the great work ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... she did. It is the result of her engagement. If our naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made an ideal schoolmaster's wife. I often chaff him about it, for he a little despises the intellectual professions. Natural, perfectly natural. How can a man who faces death feel as we do ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... up a running fire of chaff for some time, to which Fisher, as was his wont, showed himself to be perfectly indifferent. Lunch over, Molly disappeared. Charlie saw her go and turned instantly ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too—thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest that a stone smote the image upon the feet which were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloor, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. Now, O king, listen ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... the French, among whom God was disregarded or forgotten; and, elevated by the importance of his subject, he described the Almighty as mustering his wrath to descend on that nation, and disperse it as chaff in a whirlwind. He called on them to look towards their home of England, and to see with what eager devotion the inhabitants worshiped the golden image of Commerce, and laid the tribute of all their ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... adulation, where I shall be cut up into mince-meat for the delight of those who love sharp invective, and where I shall find an equal mixture of praise and censure so adjusted, without much judgment, as to exhibit the impartiality of the newspaper and its staff. Among it all there is much chaff, which I have learned bow to throw to the winds, with equal disregard whether it praises or blames;—but I have also found some corn, on which I have fed and nourished myself, and for which ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... amusement and curiosity to the Marlowe Grange platoon. Though they occupied different portions of the field, they would meet when they went to deliver baskets. The rollicking good nature and repartees of some of these people, especially of the gipsies, were often very funny. They would chaff the agent who registered their scores, with a considerable power of humour, and the Grange girls, waiting in line for their turns, would chuckle as they overheard ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... very unsuitable, uncalled for, and insufficient. However, sir, I accept your remarks in the same friendly spirit as, I am sure, you have offered them. Permit me, at the same time, as one many years your senior, to say that, in considering your proposals, I shall separate the chaff—of which there is a good deal—from the wheat—of which there is some little; the latter I shall gather into my mind's garner, and I trust it will fall on good soil." I took the old gentleman's hand and shook it warmly, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... I will keep on bringing pretty girls into camp—that is, I scarcely think it will grow into a steady habit," he said, and met her eyes so steadily that she dismissed all idea of any heart interest in the girl. "But I'd rather 'Tana didn't hear any chaff of that sort. You know what I mean. The boys, or any one, is like enough to joke about it at first; but when they learn 'for keeps,' that I'm not a marrying man, they'll let up. As she grows older, there'll be enough boys to bother her in camp without ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... "prithee what heavy news can come to me? I am a Giant with three heads; and besides, though knowest I can fight five hundred men in armour, and make them fly like chaff before the wind." ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous

... her side and, before she could prevent it, had grasped her hand in his own. All resistance was swept away like chaff before the whirlwind. The elder woman so far forgot her cold reserve as to blink her austere eyes, while Dorothy caught her breath, looked startled and suffered herself to be led to the door without a word of protest. There he paused and turned to Mrs. Garrison, whose thunderstruck countenance ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... along Till that eventful day When all the labor of our hands Like chaff was swept away: We saw our home made desolate, Our pleasant cottage sold; Men called us poor, but we were rich In ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... night, owing to irregularities caused by war, by wind, by weather, in the packet service, which as yet does not benefit at all by steam. For an extra hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard! Manchester, good-bye! we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office: which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... think to do us most hurt. We shall then destroy their bastilles, so that they will have no place of shelter to fly back to; and then we shall fall upon them hip and thigh on the south side, and drive them before us as chaff before the wind. They must needs then disperse themselves altogether, having no more cover to hide themselves in; so will the enemies of the Lord be dispersed, and the ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... my illness I am spending glorious days here with Wagner, and am satiating myself with his Nibelungen world, of which our business musicians and chaff-threshing critics have as yet no suspicion. It is to be hoped that this tremendous work may succeed in being performed in the year 1859, and I, on my side, will not neglect anything to forward this performance as soon as possible—a performance ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... year on furze, or "fuzz," as we call it here. Two acres of furze he had, which he cut close in alternate years, the second year's growth making a fine juicy fodder when chopped small into a sort of chaff. An old hand-apparatus for that purpose—a kind of chaff-cutting box—was described to me. The same man had a horse, which also did well on furze diet mixed with a little malt from ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... wise saying: 'Here is a man trying to fill a bushel with chaff. Now if I fill it with wheat first, it is better than to fight him.' This apothegm contains in it the whole of what I would say on ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... asked many questions, and turned over many volumes and files of newspapers, to get at the real facts of the cases of mitigation stated in "N. & Q." Having winnowed the chaff as thoroughly as I could, I send the very few grains I have found. Those only who have searched annual registers, magazines, and journals for the foundation of stories defective in names and dates, will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various

... you must do," said Larry, "otherwise I'll not stand it. Give the colleen a chaff bed, blankets an' all other parts complate, along wid that slip of a pig. If you don't do this, Paddy Donovan, why we'll finish the whiskey an' part friends—but it's ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... he could have got off with a little chaff instead of coming out with his testimony like that, and so I've been telling him. So don't you set him up again to think himself forty martyrs all in one, or there will be ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rule might apply too widely to this case. In fact, his own trouble now was that too many mistakes had been made, too many clues had been left lying around. In order to determine the guilty person, much chaff would have to be sifted from the wheat ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... the Professor relapsed into his former tone of dry chaff. The Father could not quite make up his mind whether Guildea was feeling unusually grave or unusually gay. As the two men drew near to Hyde Park Place their conversation died away and they walked forward silently ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... dust, through the volant vast Flung like chaff, as ashes cast To the nether storms, I sank, pride past, On the waiting wings of the ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth

... recalled the time when we cut the wheat with a sickle, or maybe with a hand cradle, and threshed it out with horses on the barn floor. Sometimes we had a fanning mill, and how it would make my arms ache to turn the crank! At other times, if a stiff breeze sprang up, the wheat and chaff would be shaken loose and the chaff would be blown away. If all other means failed, two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move the sheet as a fan to clean the wheat. Now we see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day, and thresh it as ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... she had taken chaff! ...Nevertheless, it was not dead within her—the self. It cried out under Renault's pitiless scorn for satisfaction, for life. The rebellious surge of desire still suffocated her at times. There was beauty, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... minute speaking in your praise," Pao-ch'ai observed smiling, "and do you come to chaff me?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... before him, a convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the Judge and the Prisoners at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed to them that attended on the Man that sat on the Cloud, Gather together the Tares, the Chaff, and Stubble, and cast them into the burning Lake. And with that, the bottomless pit opened, just whereabout I stood; out of the mouth of which there came in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said to the same persons, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... the forces of Revolution spent themselves and Metternich drove the rebels before him, as the hurricane blows chaff. Order was re-established in Vienna and in the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... one thing, and another another, whilst every fresh scout brought in fresh tidings of disaster. There could be no doubt about it. The French army had been routed at the first onset. Where the fault lay none could tell, but they were flying like chaff before the wind. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... now to face. Beginning with the language of the Western Isles, we have at the present day, at least 100,000 words, arranged as on the shelves of a Museum, in the pages of Johnson and Webster. But these 100,000 words represent only the best grains that have remained in the sieve, while clouds of chaff have been winnowed off, and while many a valuable grain too has been lost by mere carelessness. If we counted the wealth of English dialects, and if we added the treasures of the ancient language from Alfred to Wycliffe, we should easily double the herbarium of the linguistic flora of England. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... me, I fell back on my occupation of gazing indifferently at the brilliant scene. I could take no interest in it, nor in the chaff and nonsense of my friends, who tried hard to make me more like myself. It seemed that in some mysterious way I was waiting for something, though what I could not imagine. When the summons actually came, I was ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... know how impatiently!—waited with all necessaries in hand to bake bread for their men. The respective husbands and sons squatted around on their heels, languidly smoking their pipes and urging their women to be quick. A deal of good-natured chaff seemed to take place during this daily operation, but the women were quite in earnest and took themselves and the process very seriously. They seemed much concerned if one piece got too much burnt or another ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... sort of a tale before," Masters answered, with a sneer. "Job Masters is too old a bird to be caught by such chaff. I'll take my risks, gentlemen. I'll ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... shall lie like sheaves upon our fields; the ruins of your castles fly like chaff beneath the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... dear, to have fallen into the hands of a hypocritical Protestant after that poor Falleix, who was so amusing, so good-natured, so full of chaff! How we used to laugh! They say all stockbrokers are stupid. Well, he, for one, never lacked ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... seen, darkness brooded over the sanctuary as at other times. Moreover, among the emblems of Dionysus was the winnowing-fan, that is the large open shovel-shaped basket, which down to modern times has been used by farmers to separate the grain from the chaff by tossing the corn in the air. This simple agricultural instrument figured in the mystic rites of Dionysus; indeed the god is traditionally said to have been placed at birth in a winnowing-fan as in a cradle: in art he is represented as an infant so cradled; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... secret telegraphy a crowd had soon gathered. One by one, the "byes" dropped down from the village, and to each in turn Jem had to tell all he knew about the mermen. Then commenced a running fire of chaff from ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... I firmly trod And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar stairs That slope through darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith and grope And gather dust and chaff and call To what I feel is Lord of all And faintly trust the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... was still ably answering the chaff of Nini and the Germans. And her face was not the face she had shewn to Betty. Betty came quietly behind her and touched her shoulder. She leapt in her chair and turned ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... what MAURICE tells us he found him to be, 'a generative thinker.' Out of much you cannot understand,—wherever the blame for that may lie,—out of much slag and much dross, I am mistaken if you will not lay up some of your finest gold; and out of much straw and chaff some of the finest of the wheat. The Divine Nature, human nature, time, space, matter, life, love, sin, death, holiness, heaven, hell,—Behmen's reader must have lived and moved all his days among such things as these: he must be at home, as far as the mind ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte

... and butterfly-nets we would start out in search of new adventures. First we passed through the narrow gothic streets paved with pebbles, then we struck into the paths that lay just beyond the village, paths that were always covered with wheat-chaff that got into our shoes, and into which we sank ankle deep; finally we reached the open country, the vineyards, and the roads that led to the woods, or better still those that brought us to the river which we forded by means of the ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... fate which wise men had always anticipated. Oxford repudiated them. Their theories, their controversial successes, their learned arguments, their appeals to the imagination, all seemed to go down, and to be swept away like chaff, before the breath of straightforward common sense and honesty. Henceforth there was a badge affixed to them and all who belonged to them, a badge of suspicion and discredit, and even shame, which bade men beware of them, an overthrow under which it seemed wonderful that they could raise their ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... we can we glean in this vile age Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist. I must not quite omit the talking sage, Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist, Who, in his common-place book, had a page Prepared each morn for evenings. 'List, oh, list!'- 'Alas, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... was the subject of a good deal of chaff that night at mess. The Rajah was being entertained, and he was the only man who paid the young officer any compliments on the matter of his achievement on the racecourse. Everyone else openly declared that the horse, and not its rider, was ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... baby began to cry. Then I gave it up as hopeless, but it was with a sensation of being more dead than alive that I crawled down to breakfast—late, of course. One is always late the first morning in a strange house—one can never find one's things. I bore with my best professional smile the hearty chaff of my host (how I hate a hearty man the first thing in the morning) and the audible remarks of the dear children who were seated at intervals round the table. But my patience well-nigh gave way when I found that our hostess had carefully mapped out for her guests a list of amusements ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various

... driven to a voluntary death by the executioner's shewing him some halters and hooks, as if he had been sent to him by order of the senate. Drusus, it is said, was so rabid with hunger, that he attempted to eat the chaff with which his mattress was stuffed. The relics of both were so scattered, that it was ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Nay, I am a lover whose words go lamely. They are but chaff blown along the wind of great accomplishment. With thee to fight for I would dare the very rage of ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... through a period of some twenty, thirty, and forty years," continued the old man, "noting the changes that have taken place, and counting over the hopes that have been given like chaff to the winds, I feel sad. And yet, amid all this change and disappointment, there is much to stir the heart with feelings of pleasure. A single ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... had never ceased. He spoke up undauntedly to the most awful drags full of the biggest and most solemn guardsmen; as to the humblest donkey-chaise in which Bob the dustman was driving Molly to the race. He had fired astonishing volleys of what is called "chaff" into endless windows as he passed; into lines of grinning girls' schools; into little regiments of shouting urchins hurraying behind the railings of their Classical and Commercial Academies; into casements whence smiling maid-servants, and nurses tossing babies, or ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... smiling too, and quite cheerful under the circumstances, having determined to act on my father's advice, which Tim Rooney had subsequently confirmed, of never taking umbrage at any joke or chaff from my shipmates, but to face all my disagreeables like a man; "I think, though, we might make some better arrangement than this. I've got a little washhand-basin fixed up inside my chest under there, only I ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... comments on the absent bridegroom flowed pretty freely. This should have been the merriest time of the evening—the merriest time, in fact, of all the three festive days—the time when one was allowed to chaff the bride and to make her blush, to slap the lucky bridegroom on the back and generally to allow full play to that exuberance of spirits which is always bubbling up to the surface out of a ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... and has put an end to such wretched questions as, 'Will it pay to follow the Master?' or such thoughts as, 'If I give myself fully to God, perhaps I shall have to suffer the loss of many things I hold dear; people will be down upon me, and chaff me, and, perhaps, persecute me; and, besides, I really do want to make a little money for myself and my family, and I must not be righteous over-much'; when, I say, men or women have cast aside all such thoughts, ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... He didn't chaff me about my country, and make fun of our government, or hint that American men were the only men living who knew how to treat women, as he seemed to delight in doing when his sister and cousin were with ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... peace, but if he could only feel that the people were with him he would drive the sixty plotting conspirators before him like chaff before ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... reached Europe until after Harry had sailed, nor had it met his regiment on the ocean. When he heard it now, he could only become more grave and uneasy. But the British officers were scornful of their clodhopper besiegers. In due time this rabble should be scattered like chaff. But was it a mere rabble? Certainly. Were not the best people in Boston loyal to the King's government? Some of them, yes. But, as Harry went around with open eyes and ears, eager for information, he found that many of them were with the "rabble." News was easy to be had. The ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... came towards the group of likely youths. These wavered a little, were silent, sniggered, stood their ground—the khaki-clad figures passed among them. Hackneyed words, jests, the touch of flattery, changing swiftly to chaff—all the customary performance, hollow and pathetic; and then the two figures re-emerged, their hands clenched, their eyes shifting here and there, their lips drawn back in fixed smiles. They had failed, and were trying to hide it. They must not ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... around him beguiled the tedium of waiting with good-humoured chaff. One great creature with a shaggy mane and a sanguinary voice came up, bottle in hand, saluted the downcast head with a mixture of deference and familiarity, then climbed to the box-seat beside the driver, and in deepest bass began the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... Master Mill, with an apostolic constancy and fortitude, "I know that I must die once, and therefore, as Christ said to Judas, What thou doest do quickly. You shall know that I will not recant the truth, for I am corn and not chaff. I will neither be blown away by the wind nor burst with the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... Although he laughed at him, as he grew accustomed to him, he began almost to like him. He had a certain tolerance for the peculiarities of others, and he accepted Mackintosh as a queer fish. Perhaps he liked him, unconsciously, because he could chaff him. His humour consisted of coarse banter and he wanted a butt. Mackintosh's exactness, his morality, his sobriety, were all fruitful subjects; his Scot's name gave an opportunity for the usual jokes about Scotland; he enjoyed himself thoroughly when two or three men ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... to keep one exclaiming 'What next?' There's Browning to puzzle, and Gilbert to chaff, And Marcus Aurelius to soothe one if vexed, And good MARCUS TVAINUS to lend you a laugh; There be capital tomes that are filled with fly-hooks, And I've frequently found them the best ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... him," said Jacqueline, as if taking her under her protection. "He is nothing but a tease; what he says is only chaff. But I might as well talk Greek to her," she added, shrugging her shoulders. "In the convent they don't know what to make of a joke. Only spare her at least, if ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... that before God. But he would not, he could not, for his conscience was under convictions, the awakenings of God were upon him; wherefore his privileges melt away like grease, and fly from him like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, which the wind taketh up and scattereth as the dust; he therefore lets all privileges fall, and pleads only that he ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... I fear you may possibly have to submit to a certain amount of good-natured chaff, but nothing more. All, if I may say so, ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... met Duncannon and Howick, both open-mouthed against the amendments, and this in particular, and declaring that though the others might have been stomached, this could not go down, as it was in direct opposition to the principle of the Bill. Howick talked of 'the Lords being swept away like chaff' and of 'the serious times that were approaching.' Duncannon said there would be a conference, and if the Lords insisted on these amendments the Bill would be lost. I asked if a compromise was not feasible, the Lords abandoning this and the Commons taking the other amendments, which he said ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... a latherin' away with both arms, as if he was tryin' to thrash out wheat, and see how bothered he looked, as if he couldn't find nothin' but dust and chaff in the straw? Well, that critter was agin the Bill, in course, and Irish like, used every argument in favour of it. Like a pig swimmin' agin stream, every time he struck out, he was a cuttin' of his own throat. He then blob ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... most fulsome prayers. And Hogginarmo promised speedily to pay his humble homage at his august master's throne, of which he begged leave to be counted the most loyal and constant defender. Such a WARY old BIRD as King Padella was not to be caught by Master Hogginarmo's CHAFF and we shall hear presently how the tyrant treated his upstart vassal. No, no; depend on't, two such rogues do not ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course when ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... of thine a single simple door, By some new Power reduplicate, must be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once of yore Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor Thee and thy years and these my words ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... flour. The quality of a brand of flour will of course depend much upon the kind of grain from which it is prepared—whether new or old, perfect, or deteriorated by rust, mold, or exposure, and also upon the thoroughness with which it has been cleansed from dust, chaff, and all foreign substances, as well as upon the method by which it is ground. It is not possible to judge with regard to all these particulars by the appearance of the flour, but in general, good flour will be sweet, dry, and free from ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... to us kids—when we pulled at his fur Or twisted his tail he would never demur; He seemed to enjoy all our play an' our chaff, For his tongue 'u'd hang out an' he'd laff an' he'd laff; An' once, when the Hobart boy fell through the ice, He wuz drug clean ashore ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship's company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them except Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest being when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... night; the house, with machinery for extracting the juice from the cane, the refining rooms, the places where it is dried, etc., all on a large scale. If the hacienda is, as here, a coffee plantation also, then there is the great mill for separating the beans from the chaff, and sometimes also there are buildings where they make brandy. Here there are four hundred men employed, exclusive of boys, one hundred horses, and a number of mules. The property is generally very ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... for the attainment of peace. Now, with magnanimity above all praise, without waiting for the first advance from his conquered foes, he wrote again imploring peace. Upon the field of Marengo, having scattered all his enemies like chaff before him, with the smoke of the conflict still darkening the air, and the groans of the dying swelling upon his ears, laying aside all the formalities of state, with heartfelt feeling and earnestness he wrote to the Emperor of Austria. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott



Words linked to "Chaff" :   twit, razz, ride, tantalize, rally, bran, bait, tantalise, tease, foil, kid, taunt, plant substance, josh, cod, plant material, rag, stubble



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