chaffinch: [OE] Etymologically, a chaffinch is a finch which gets its food by pecking amongst the chaff and other grain debris in the barnyard. The word chaff itself (Old English ceaf) probably goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *kaf-, *kef- ‘chew’, which was also the source of chafer ‘beetle’ [OE] (literally the ‘chewing creature’) and jowl. (The verb chaff ‘make fun of’ [19], on the other hand, is probably an alteration of chafe, which came via Old French chaufer and Vulgar Latin *califāre from Latin calefacere ‘make warm’, a relative of English cauldron and calorie.) => chafer, jowl
Fringilla cælebs, Old English ceaffinc, literally "chaff-finch," so called for its habit of eating waste grain among the chaff on farms. See chaff + finch.
