Green’s Dictionary of Slang

chaffer n.2

[chaff v. (1)]

1. the tongue; the mouth.

[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Chaffer The Tongue. Cant.
[UK]Egan Life in London (1869) 264: If you’ll keep your chaffers close [...] you shall hear all about it.
[UK]Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 193: Shut up your chaffer, and tip.
[US]Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Jan. n.p.: The Tamworth men now let loose their chaffers.
[UK]Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
[UK]Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[UK]C. Hindley Vocab. and Gloss. in True Hist. of Tom and Jerry.

2. the throat.

[UK]Pierce Egan’s Life in London 25 Feb. 869/: The Patlanders, who had been rather silent [...] now gave their Chaffers a holiday, singing ‘O’Nale for a hundred’.
[UK]Egan Bk of Sports 25: He napt a rum one between the chaffer and the sneezer.

3. (also chafferer) one who banters or teases, a teaser.

[UK]Egan Anecdotes of the Turf, the Chase etc. 180: She possessed the gift of the gab [...] and, amongst her equals, was viewed as as an out-and-out chaffer.
[UK]Egan Bk of Sports 54: ‘Intrude, my dear fellow,’ replied the Chaffer, ‘I beg you will not mention it?’.
[UK](con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 327/2: One of these men had a wife who used to sell for him, – she was considered to be the best ‘chaffer’ on the road; [...] her language abounded with obscenity.
[UK]Temple Bar 536: An actor of very moderate abilities, and so remarkably ill-favoured in person as to be the constant butt of the chaffers in the pit [F&H].
[UK]E. Pugh City Of The World 36: Middlesex Street, still popularly known as Petticoat Lane, then a seething mass of chafferers.

4. (UK und.) a street seller who specializes in last dying speeches, true confessions and similar melodramas.

[Ind]Home News for India 17 Apr. 19/1: The prisoner Benjamin is a well-known ‘chaffer’ [...] the class of street-mendicants, who go about making appeals to the public in a loud voice [...] It is considered the most productive branch of the mendicant's calling.

In phrases

moisten one’s chaffer (v.) (also cool one’s chaffer, moisten one’s larynx, sluice one’s chaffer)

to take a drink, to quench one’s thirst.

[UK]W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry III iii: Now, landlord, arter that ’ere drap of max, suppose we haves a drain o’ heavy wet, just by way of cooling our chaffers – mine’s as dry as a chip.
[Ire]Tom And Jerry; Musical Extravaganza II i: You have moistened your chaffer tolerably well.
[UK]Pierce Egan’s Life in London 20 Feb. 29/1: Nelson was the favourite liqueur tossed off by the. Pres., and out of compliment to the Sage, all the swells present sluiced their chaffers with its enlivening quality.
[UK]G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
[UK]Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[Aus]M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 37: Give us a drop o’ vater [...] I haven’t moistened my chaffer this blessed day.
Greenock Advertiser 1 Oct. 4/1: The rancher slapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he would ‘irrigate,’ [...] ‘moisten your larynx,’ [...] ‘nominate your posion’.
[UK]F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 415: Jem awoke me with an intimation that he would like to ‘moisten his chaffer’.
[Aus]C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 49: Moisten your Chaffer, have a drink.
[Scot](con. late 19C) Dundee Courier 6 Apr. 6/4: Slang of 60 Years Ago [...] If you took a drink you ‘moistened your chaffer’.