chaffering

Etymology

verb

1. present participle and gerund of chaffer

noun

1. The act of one who chaffers.
   September 9, 1819, Washington Irving, letter to Henry Breevort You have put my writings into circulation, and arranged the pecuniary concerns in such a way as to save future trouble and petty chafferings about accounts, and to give the whole an independent and gentlemanlike air.
   The air was all smell – curry-stuff, durian, fish and flesh – and the noise was of hoicking and chaffering. 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 115