What"s the Difference Between the Words "Chafe" and "Chaff"?
The verb chafe (rhymes with safe) means to rub, to wear away by rubbing, or to irritate. As a noun, chafe means an injury or irritation caused by rubbing.
The verb chaff (rhymes with laugh) means to tease in a good-natured way. As a noun, chaff refers to fine-cut hay, husks of grain separated in threshing, or anything regarded as worthless.
The biblical expression "to separate the wheat from the chaff" means to distinguish good from bad or the valuable from the worthless.
(a) Long regarded as _____ to be discarded when their usefulness ended, the farm workers wanted to be treated with dignity.
(b) She sat on a sofa underneath two buck heads, feeling the distressed leather _____ against her bare arms.
Answers to Practice Exercises
The verb chaff (rhymes with laugh) means to tease in a good-natured way. As a noun, chaff refers to fine-cut hay, husks of grain separated in threshing, or anything regarded as worthless.
The biblical expression "to separate the wheat from the chaff" means to distinguish good from bad or the valuable from the worthless.
Examples:
- The saddlebags began to chafe against Elissa's shoulder.
- The farm hands grew discouraged when they saw how much of what they had raked was mere chaff.
- Elbert Hubbard defined editor as "a person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed."
Practice:
(a) Long regarded as _____ to be discarded when their usefulness ended, the farm workers wanted to be treated with dignity.
(b) She sat on a sofa underneath two buck heads, feeling the distressed leather _____ against her bare arms.
Answers to Practice Exercises