Also 6 chamfure, chaunfer, 7 champher, chanfer. [see prec. sb. OF. had chanfraindre, pa. pple. chanfraint; mod.F. has chanfreiner, to chamfer. The latter element of OF. chanfraindre appears to be fraindre:—L. frangĕre to break; and the whole may be cantum frangere, chant fraindre, to break the edge or side (less likely champ fraindre to break the field).]
1. trans. To channel, flute, furrow.
1565–73. [see CHAMFERED].
1598. Florio, Incanellare … to chamfure or make hollow.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 385. The said stone or kernell of the Date … along the back hath a cut or deep slit chamfered in (as it were) between two pillowes.
1614. W. Browne, Sheph. Pipe, G 5. Looke how breme Winter chamfers Earths bleeke face.
1706. Kersey, s.v., The Stalks of certain Plants are … said To be Chamfer’d, when they have Impresions upon them like such Furrows.
1820. Mair, Tyro’s Dict. (ed. 10), 374. Strio … to chamfer timber or stone.
2. To cut away or reduce (a square edge or arris) so as to replace it by a plane surface with two oblique angles; to bevel away, off.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 111/1. Champher is to take the square edge of a stone off Bevile ways.
1800. Herschel, in Phil. Trans., XC. 498. The holes … are chamferred away on the under side.
1849. Freeman, Archit., 44. Beauty and convenience alike would suggest chamfering or rounding off the angles.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven., I. xxii. § 8. An amputated corner is said to be chamfered.
