chafe

From Middle English chaufen (“to warm”), borrowed from Old French chaufer (modern French chauffer), from Latin calefacere, calfacere (“to make warm”), from calere (“to be warm”) + facere (“to make”). See caldron.

• (US) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃeɪf/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪf

chafe (uncountable)

1. Heat excited by friction.
2. Injury or wear caused by friction.
3. Vexation; irritation of mind; rage.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     Like a wylde Bull, that, being at a bay, / Is bayted of a mastiffe and a hound / […] That in his chauffe he digs the trampled ground / And threats his horns […]

4. (archaic) An expression of opinionated conflict.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:argument

   • 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier

     When we returned we found the poor prisoner in a terrible chafe with the sentinel for detaining him, for the guard had been true to his trust.

• chafen

chafe (third-person singular simple present chafes, present participle chafing, simple past and past participle chafed)

1. (transitive) To excite heat in by friction; to rub in order to stimulate and make warm.
2. (transitive) To excite passion or anger in; to fret; to irritate.
3. (transitive) To fret and wear by rubbing.

   to chafe a cable

4. (intransitive) To rub; to come together so as to wear by rubbing; to wear by friction.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene ii]:

     the troubled Tiber chafing with her shores

   • 1855 November 10, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Peace-pipe”, in The Song of Hiawatha, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, OCLC 2285111, page 12:

     [Gitche Manito] Breathed upon the neighbouring forest, / Made its great boughs chafe together, / Till in flame they burst and kindled; […]

5. (intransitive) To be worn by rubbing.

   A cable chafes.

6. (intransitive) To have a feeling of vexation; to be vexed; to fret; to be irritated.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry VViues of VVindsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iii]:

     He will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter.

   • 1996, Jim Schiller, Developing Jepara in New Order Indonesia, page 58:

     Many local politicians chafed under the restrictions of Guided Democracy […]

• chafage
• chafe at the bit
• chafing dish
• chafing gear

• chafe in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• chafe on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

chafe

1. Alternative form of chaufen

chafe

1. inflection of chafar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative