Also 8 chiff-chaf, chif-chaf. [Expressive of its note.] A bird, also called Lesser Pettychaps (Phylloscopus rufus), of the family Sylviinæ or Warblers, closely akin to the Willow Wren or Willow Warbler, with which it is often confounded in dialectal nomenclature.
c. 1780. G. White, Observ. (1876), I. 409. The smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiff-chaf … utters two sharp piercing notes. Ibid. (1792), Lett., xi. To Marsham, The smallest willow-wren … called here the Chif-Chaf from its two loud sharp notes, is always the first spring bird of passage.
1860. Tristram, Gt. Sahara, vi. 100. Here are the winter-quarters of many of our familiar English birds: the chiffchaff, willow-wren, and white throat hop on every twig in the gardens.
Hence Chiff-chaff v., to utter this bird’s note.
1884. J. Burroughs, in Cent. Mag., March, 779/2. The little chiffchaff was chiffchaffing in the pine woods.
