How to Use chaff in a Sentence

chaff

noun
  • Turn on the fan, and the moving air will blow away the lighter chaff.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Keep all your gear in the blind with you or cover it with chaff or brush.
    — Joe Weimer, Outdoor Life, 22 Feb. 2021
  • For the rest of us, this is where the wheat and the chaff separate.
    — Bo Howard, Rolling Stone, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Others, though, found their way through the chaff and into the light.
    — Parker Gabriel, Denver Post, 24 Jan. 2026
  • And banks have the ability to sift between the wheat and chaff.
    — Joydeep Ghosh, Quartz India, 1 Oct. 2020
  • Pour them onto a plate, then blow on them to separate the chaff.
    — Jessica Damiano, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Sep. 2022
  • And the music press emerged to help separate wheat from chaff.
    — John Semley, The New Republic, 18 Nov. 2022
  • But how to separate the proverbial blender wheat from the chaff?
    — Tiffany Hopkins, Bon Appétit, 1 Feb. 2023
  • Weird machines rolled along scooping up the rows and spitting chaff out the back.
    — Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 9 June 2021
  • Shake the bag well and pour seeds out onto a plate, blow on them to separate the chaff.
    — Jessica Damiano, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Sep. 2022
  • Day 2 of school and the wheat’s already been separated from the chaff.
    — Inga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 Aug. 2025
  • These rules will help to sort the wheat from the chaff in scientific reporting.
    — WSJ, 15 Oct. 2021
  • Time for Katie to separate the husband wheat from the husband chaff.
    — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 20 July 2021
  • Archaeologists know this from a thick layer of dusty chaff buried in the cave’s floor.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 30 Nov. 2020
  • Basil seeds are tiny, so separating them from the small flower petals and chaff can be tedious.
    — Jessica Damiano, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Sep. 2022
  • That’s because this whole grain is roasted or smoked, then polished or beaten to remove the chaff.
    — Rita Nader Heikenfeld, The Enquirer, 5 May 2023
  • The tiny sandlike seeds of the plant are threshed and pounded to remove the chaff before the grains are cooked.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Also throw whatever chaff is left over from the harvest on top of the blanket to blend in better.
    — Joe Genzel, Outdoor Life, 11 Aug. 2020
  • The grain, straw, and chaff of fonio are used as fodder for ruminant animals.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Mar. 2026
  • The reckless use of chaff in the incident placed the P-8 crew in serious danger.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 8 June 2022
  • The wheat has been separated from the chaff, and the divisional round will narrow things further.
    — New York Times, 14 Jan. 2021
  • Religion, in the hands of some folks, has transformed into a type of judgment, a way of separating the wheat from the chaff.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2022
  • Archaeobotanists find various parts of plants, including seeds, chaff, fruit pits, nutshells and cobs.
    — Alexandria Mitchem Hansen, The Conversation, 19 Dec. 2025
  • And that’s basically removing the chaff from the seed — all the plant material, all the seed capsules.
    — Caroline Spivack, Curbed, 22 July 2021
  • In Figure 2, after the corn stalks are plucked, the cobs are separated and the chaff pulverized.
    — Sabbir Rangwala, Forbes.com, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Harvest quinoa by hitting the flower stalks against a hard surface or rubbing them between your hands to separate the seeds from the flower parts or chaff.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Bookmark the best eco-friendly and energy-efficient properties by seeking out experts who know how to sort the wheat from the chaff.
    — Juliet Kinsman, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Apr. 2023
  • The wheat then passed through a fast-spinning cylinder behind the cab, which threshed it before sending it through a series of sieves that separated the grain from the chaff.
    — Michael Holtz, The New Yorker, 22 July 2022
  • Wheat and chaff combined into a slurry that publishers desperately tried to hock as the internet shrank ad revenues.
    — John Semley, The New Republic, 18 Nov. 2022
  • Compared with the seeds of almost every other plant, grass seed is highly palatable, especially for a dexterous ape whose hands can slough off the chaff.
    — Literary Hub, 25 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'chaff.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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