CHAFING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does chafing mean? 

• CHAFING (noun)
  The noun CHAFING has 1 sense:

1. soreness or irritation of the skin caused by friction

  Familiarity information: CHAFING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHAFING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Soreness or irritation of the skin caused by friction

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("chafing" is a kind of...):

rawness; soreness; tenderness (a pain that is felt (as when the area is touched))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "chafing"):

intertrigo (chafing between two skin surfaces that are in contact (as in the armpit or under the breasts or between the thighs))

 Context examples 

He paced restlessly about our sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down and about until she could thrash them herself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The expression of his face was, as I remember it, exceedingly sad and gentle, with the deep lines upon it which told of the chafing of his urgent and fiery soul.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender—it was a low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon—in the shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The rasping, scorching sands were a man’s hard hands chafing my naked chest.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)