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Etymologies
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Examples
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The next morning everybody began to call the chiff-chaff names, and to say it was a little cheat; for a sharp sleety rain had been falling for hours and freezing as it fell, so that all the rooks 'claws were stuck fast to the tall, top branches of the limes.
Featherland How the Birds lived at Greenlawn George Manville Fenn 1870
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I did a lot of reading on the Web, learning terms like chiff and fipple.
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The three virtues sought in a whistle are chiff, or resonance, stability – when you blow up an octave, the note stays true – and durability.
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The first version was *almost* as good as the maple head: clear, stable, lovely chiff, loud enough to handle the accordeon.
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So soft, so true, so much chiff … After a lot of international to-ing and fro-ing I managed to order one, and I was hooked.
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Algerian Wine - Specializing in Algerian wine, this site details the best wines from the regions and a very nicely done history of wine production in ... www. chiff.com/wine/africa/maghreb. htm - 26k -
Science 2006
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At the western end of the Isle of Wight, and on the further shore, about three miles from the point of the island which we call the Needles, there is a little break in the chiff known to all the stay-at-home English travellers as Freshwater Gate.
The Claverings 2005
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People skim those ‘chiff-chaff’ little notes and forget them the next moment.
The Silver Spoon 2004
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During the five years I spent at school at Bradfield I would usually, towards the end of March, receive a postcard from him saying simply, 'I have heard the chiff-chaff.'
The Girl In A Swing Adams, Richard, 1920- 1980
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(And there's a chiff-chaff, soft, and slim, and brown.)
The Verse-Book of a Homely Woman Fay Inchfawn
dwisely commented on the word chiff
Chiff is a word that originated from the craft of making pipe organs. It describes an aspect of musical sounds of organs, and certain wind instruments, including tinwhistles and pennywhistles. An instrument with "chiff" has a somewhat more abrupt onset of the note once air is blown through the pipe, and that onset is also characterized by a bit of "edge" or "bite" to the sound.
June 10, 2009