a. [f. CHAFF sb.1 + -Y1.]
1. Full of or covered with chaff.
1552. Huloet, Chaffye or full of chaffe, acerosus.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XIX. i. To lie and sleep upon straw-beds and chaffy couches.
1797. Coleridge, Kubla Khan. Like … chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail.
1865. Miss M. B. Edwards, Lisabee’s Love Story, I. 80. ‘If I do go, I suppose I must dress?’ said William, looking dubiously at his chaffy trowsers.
2. Consisting of, or of the nature of, chaff; spec. in Bot. paleaceous.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, I. ii. 4. Whereupon do grow small scaly or chaffie huskes.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 201. From the Straw and Chaffy part mixed with their Oates.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., II. 9, note. The chaffy scales of the calyx.
1851. Glenny, Handbk. Fl. Gard., 19. The flowers … are … of the chaffy texture known as ‘everlasting.’
3. Resembling chaff.
1583. Stanyhurst, Poems, Ps. i. (Arb.), 126. Lyke the sand, or chaffye dust.
1770. J. Armstrong, Imit. Shaks., 85, in Misc. I. 152 (R.). Winnow the chaffy snow.
4. fig. Light, empty and worthless as chaff. (Said of things and persons.)
1594. Willobie, Avisa, 39 b. Chaffye thoughtes.
1603. Chettle, Eng. Mourn. Garm., B i b. That euery impudent rayler should with the breath of his mouth stirre the chaffie multitude.
1612. Shaks. & Fl., Two Noble K., III. i. 41. Thou liest, and art … a chaffy lord, Not worth the name of villain!
1642. R. Carpenter, Experience, V. xix. 331. That swelling and wordy, but chaffie, senselesse, and empty Pamphlet.
1819. J. Milner, End Relig. Controv., II. (ed. 2), 57. A dry and chaffy Epistle.
5. Comb., as chaffy-textured.
1877. F. Heath, Fern W., 21. Covered with various-coloured, chaffy-textured scales.
