Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chaffer, charva, chauver) to have sexual intercourse; thus charvering, sexual intercourse; chavering dodge, prostitution .

1636		J. Shirley Duke’s Mistress II i: Although you had been married, and i’ the sheets together, And chaffer’d earnest for a boy, ’tis nothing; it binds not.
1640		H. Mill Nights Search I 255: This strumpet had been chaffring with her ware; If she could trade, with whom she did not care.
1671		‘Last Song at the Kings House’ in Ebsworth Westminster Drolleries (1875) 5: Give me a mate That nothing will ask or tell us: She stands on no terms, or chaffers by way of Indenture.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 68: Ven I first piped her, she vos a swoddys mot; vell, she did the charvering dodge, vith the other swods, so her old man turned her up, and she stumped the stones for her chances.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 95: Deviser. To copulate; ‘to chauver’.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 100: Soon as she’s come in here, I’ve only thought to meself, hallo, hallo, couldn’t half charver you, gel.
1958		F. Norman in Vogue Oct. in Norman’s London (1969) 28: Quite a lot of charvering goes on until he gets the slingers.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 41: My daughter Myra and her young friends are having a lot of fun teaching themselves to charva.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 139: That’ll teach you not to go charvering my chicks.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 55: Oh yeah, and by the way, mate, I might as well own up, I’ve been charvering your missus.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 96: He holds it up to her nose [,,,] so she can snort some cha-cha and get charvered at the same time.
2022		J. Meades in LRB 9 June 🌐 [H]e’s charvering his way through London’s upper-class totty, including Princess Anne.

2. (costermonger) to ruin, to spoil or interfere in another’s business, i.e. to fuck v. (2a)

1934

P. Allingham Cheapjack 189: It is a common enough expression among grafters, and often used when one worker ‘charvers’ another or in other words spoils his pitch.