chainies

C3H4A1I1N1I1E1S1

noun

Pieces of broken pottery or crockery, sometimes used to play a children's housekeeping game.

First used 19th c.Scrabble 13
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Meanings

nounchainies pl (plural only)
  1. Irelandcolloquialpluralplural onlyPieces of broken pottery or crockery, sometimes used to play a children's housekeeping game.First known use 19th c.

    One party was quietly playing ‘chanies’, as they called house-keeping with pieces of broken pottery.

    1897, W. B. Yeats, The Secret Rose, page 171
    1 more example

    Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.

    1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 6: Hades]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 109

Origin

From a regional variant of china + -ies.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

chainies. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chainies

MLA

“chainies.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chainies. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chainies,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chainies.

Source: chainies on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.