Green’s Dictionary of Slang

banter, badinage or ridicule; thus chafflike, in a teasing manner.

1648		W. Jenkyn Blind Guide iv 76: You pretend to nothing but chaffe and scoffes [F&H].
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 448: Mortimer also discovered symptoms of lush-logic, for though he had an inclination to keep up the chaff, his dictionary appeared to be new modelled, and his lingo abridged by repeated clips at his mother tongue.
c.1830		‘Present Fashions’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 281: There’s the dashing mantua-maker who likes a little chaff.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/2: ‘Sambo, of woolly nob,’ said he, ‘be pleased to stow your chaff’.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 61: Doesn’t Bill stand chaff well – out and out – don’t get shirty at all.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand (1890) 129: After a great deal of discussion, called by the vulgar ‘chaff’.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: The chaff of his fellow subs.
1861		Hills & Plains I 116: ‘This old female goes in for mild chaff’.
1862		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 19 June 3/6: The coarse ‘chaff’ [...] with which writers of a much inferior order deride everything that can be represented as an incongruity between high principles and low practice.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 116: The noisy exchange of boisterous ‘chaff’.
1870		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 16 Apr. 434/2: They are also restless, soon tired of long exhortations, and somewhat given to chaff.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 93: A proud curl of her lip was the response to the compliment; but her words were coarse as she replied, ‘None of your chaff, for I don’t want it.’.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 4: There was blithe Major Stock / I.O.M., full of chaff.
1879		London Life 7 June 6/1: [T]he showy dressed damsels [...] maintain a running fire of ‘flash’ chaff with surfeited old dandies, and gay young sparks.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 June 9/3: They wanted to fix me But they didn’t catch this old bird with their sanguinary chaff .
1882		Tuapeka Times (Otago) 16 Sept. 4: Although our worthy chief ruler cuts and deals in chaff, he didn’t bargain for that load of rubbish.
1887		‘My Sally’ in Baumann (1902) cxix: Till Jack onst sed chafflike, ‘Oh my! / Bill’s funkin’!’.
1894		‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Early Days 149: Wright’s not a bird as’ll be caught by there ’ere sort o’ chaff.
1899		Crissie 17: ‘Stay, stay Topsy darling! Don’t mind my chaff’.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 22 Dec. 187: Morton’s love of scribbling verses was as favourite a subject of ‘chaff’ as Jack Lightfoot’s rooted objection to snakes.
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 46: Hilary doesn’t seem to mind their ‘chaff,’ as he calls it.
1914		H. Champion ‘The End of My Cigar’ [monologue] Then I saw an animal that caused a lot of chaff, / ’Twas called the ‘Um-ga-zoo-ze-lum’.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 242: ‘Get on with you!’ said the waitress, who understood this to be some sort of chaff.
1937		D.L. Sayers Busman’s Honeymoon (1974) 194: More chaff followed upon this.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 109: ’Frisco drinks with everyone, wisecracks [...] bandies chaff in the argot of a dozen capitals.
1953		L. Doyle Back to Ballygullion 55: He was getting a little chaff. He took it more uncomfortably than one would have expected.
2003		T. Wolff Old School 40: Frost sounded like a man who’d been stung by a taunt, showing he could take it and come back with some chaff of his own.