chiffon

rag; scrap

“parler chiffons, causer chiffons” — to chew the rag

From chiffe + -on. Chiffe is from Middle French chiffe (“cloth, old rag”) from Old French chipe (“rag”), from Middle English chip, chippe (“chip, shard, fragment”) from Old English ċipp (“chip, splinter, shaving”), from Old English *ċippian (“to chip, shave, splinter”), from Proto-West Germanic *kipp-, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵey- (“to split; divide; germinate; sprout”). More at English chip.