Definition
An archaic legal term for goods, wares, and merchandise. The word appears in early English statutory text — specifically the statute 3 Edw. IV. c. 4 — as a collective noun for tradeable commodities. It is not a term of active legal use and survives only in historical sources and annotations to medieval and early modern English legislation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "chaffer," meaning one who chaffers, or instances of chaffering.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1813): "Chaffering" in common historical parlance denoted bargaining or negotiating the terms of a transaction — the process of haggling, not the goods themselves.
The gap matters: In its legal statutory context, "chaffers" referred to the object of trade — the goods — while in common contemporary usage "chaffering" described the act of trading or bargaining. Burrill flags this distinction directly, noting that even by his time the common word had shifted toward denoting negotiation rather than merchandise. A researcher encountering "chaffers" in a statutory or pleading context should read it as the goods themselves, not as a reference to bargaining conduct.
Common Confusion
Do not conflate "chaffers" (goods, wares) with "chaffering" (bargaining or haggling). The two share a root but function differently: the former is a noun identifying the subject matter of commerce; the latter is a gerund describing commercial negotiation. In annotating 3 Edw. IV. c. 4 and related texts, Cowell and Blount use "chaffers" in the commodity sense, while Webster's usage cited by Burrill reflects the later conversational meaning of the verb form.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard rather than a working legal concept. Researchers encountering "chaffers" in transcriptions of early English statutes or in Cowell's Interpreter, Blount's Law Dictionary, or similar glossators should treat it as a period-specific synonym for "goods and merchandise" — not as a term carrying distinct legal weight beyond that.
Several practical notes for corpus researchers:
First, the term is largely restricted to one statutory source (3 Edw. IV. c. 4) and its annotations. Finding it elsewhere in a legal document likely indicates either direct quotation from that statute or a deliberate archaism by the drafter.
Second, Burrill's entry is the most analytically useful of the shelf sources because it traces the semantic drift from the legal meaning (goods) to the contemporary common meaning (bargaining), citing both Cowell and Webster. Black's entries in both editions are bare glosses and add nothing beyond the synonym.
Third, researchers working in early modern commercial law, trade regulation, or the history of mercantile statutes may encounter this term in the original statutory language. It should be read in parallel with terms like "wares," "merchandise," and "chattels" as they appear in the same period.
Historical Dictionary Support
The shelf sources are in agreement on the core meaning — goods, wares, and merchandise — but vary in depth. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) offer only a single-sentence gloss with no statutory context. Burrill adds the most scholarly value: he identifies the source statute by citation, flags the authority of Cowell and Blount, and notes the semantic divergence between the legal and common uses of the word family. His observation that "we yet use chaffering for buying and selling" — drawn from Cowell — and that "in modern parlance, the latter word rather denotes a bargaining" captures a genuine historical shift worth noting in any annotation work.
No shelf source offers a definition that distinguishes "chaffers" from neighboring commercial terms of the period (wares, merchandise, chattels personal), and none addresses how courts or practitioners interpreted the word in litigation arising under 3 Edw. IV. c. 4.
Jurisdictional Note
This is an English statutory term with no meaningful American common law presence. Researchers focused on U.S. jurisdictions will not encounter it in operative legal contexts. Its relevance is confined to English legal history and the annotation of pre-modern English statutes.