chiffchaff

noun

chiff·​chaff ˈchif-ˌchaf How to pronounce chiffchaff (audio)
: a small grayish European warbler (Phylloscopus collybita)

Examples of chiffchaff in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The Financial Times produces some of the best visual storytelling in journalism, and here audio and graphics bring infrasonic elephant rumbles and synthetic chiffchaff calls to life, conveying technical concepts like spectrograms and embedding spaces. Sam Firman, Longreads, 11 July 2024 Raskin has made a few-second chirp of a chiffchaff bird. Camille Bromley, WIRED, 29 Aug. 2023

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

Word History

Etymology

imitative

First Known Use

1780, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of chiffchaff was in 1780

Dictionary Entries Near chiffchaff

Cite this Entry

“Chiffchaff.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiffchaff. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on chiffchaff

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!