chaffer

verb

1. (intransitive)To haggle or barter.

   “To chaffer for preferment with his gold.”

   “Walter declined the invitation, precisely because he wanted a dinner. He was, also, conscious that he had made a very bad bargain; but how could he chaffer and dispute about things so precious as the contents of those pages which were the very outpourings of his heart?”

   “While he is at the front end selling calico to some wearisome old lady, sunbonneted and chaffering, a mischievous boy is very apt to be pocketing lumps of sugar for profit, or starting the faucet of a molasses barrel for fun at the other.”

   “But the people looked much like Caleb’s own. They wore dirty robes, chaffered at fruit stalls, spat, scratched.”

2. (transitive)To buy.
3. (informal, intransitive)To talk much and idly; to chatter.

   “The Dartie within him made him chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the Cambridgeshire.”

noun

1. (uncountable)Bargaining; merchandise.

   “vittels, and other chaffer and merchandize were excéeding cheape: for at London a quarter of wheat was sold for two shillings”

2. (countable, obsolete, slang)A person's mouth.

   “Moisten [or] damp your chaffer: take something to drink.”

3. The upper sieve of a cleaning shoe in a combine harvester, where chaff is removed.

   “A fan blows air through the chaffer to remove lightweight material known as chaff.”

4. A person who or thing that chaffs.