English Explanatory Dictionary

waffle

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A flat pastry pressed with a grid pattern, often eaten hot with butter and/or honey or syrup.
  2. In full potato waffle: a savoury flat potato cake with the same kind of grid pattern.
  3. A concrete slab used in flooring with a gridlike structure of ribs running at right angles to each other on its underside.
  4. A type of fabric woven with a honeycomb texture.
verb
  1. To smash (something).
verb
  1. To speak or write evasively or vaguely.
  2. Of a bird: to move in a side-to-side motion while descending before landing.
  3. Of an aircraft or motor vehicle: to travel in a slow and unhurried manner.
  4. To be indecisive about something; to dither, to vacillate, to waver.
  5. Often followed by on: to speak or write (something) at length without any clear aim or point; to ramble.
  6. To hold horizontally and rotate (one's hand) back and forth in a gesture of ambivalence or vacillation.
noun
  1. (Often lengthy) speech or writing that is evasive or vague, or pretentious.
verb
  1. Of a dog: to bark with a high pitch like a puppy, or in muffled manner.
noun
  1. The high-pitched sound made by a young dog; also, a muffled bark.

Pronunciation

/ˈwɒf.əl/ [wɒf.əl] ~ [wɒf.l̩] /ˈwɑf.əl/ [wɑf.əl] ~ [wɑf.l̩] en-us-waffle.ogg /ˈwɔf.əl/ [wɔf.əl] ~ [wɔf.l̩]

Word forms

waffle waffles waffling waffled

Etymology

The noun is borrowed from Dutch wafel (“waffle; wafer”), from Middle Dutch wafel, wafele, wavel, from Old Dutch *wāvila, from Proto-Germanic *wēbilǭ, *wēbilō, possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”) (whence Dutch weven (“to weave”) and English weave; compare, from the same verbal root, German Wabe (“honeycomb”), given that the grid pattern of the traditional Dutch lent and holiday pastry strikingly resembles a honeycomb), and possibly reinforced by German Waffel (“waffle; wafer”). The English word is a doublet of wafer and gauffre. The verb (“to smash”) derives from the manner in which batter is pressed into the shape of a waffle between the two halves of a waffle iron.

Synonyms

beat around the bush whiffle blow hot and cold babble bat the breeze blab blabber blather carp chat chatter chew the fat chew the rag chinwag chit-chat chunner clack claver clepe drivel jabber gabble gibber go on maunder natter palaver piffle prate prattle rabbit rabbit on ramble shoot the breeze shoot the bull shoot the shit smatter tattle twaddle waffle wibble witter yabber yack yatter yap bavardage bibble-babble blabbing blathering hot air mardle scuttlebutt small talk yackety-yak

Related words

wuffle

Derived words

Belgian waffle blue waffle blue waffle disease bubble waffle croffle egg waffle fawaffle waffle cone waffled waffle fries waffle hole wafflehouse waffle house Waffle House Index waffle iron waffle maker waffle slab waffle stomp waffle-stomp waffle-stomper waffle stomper waffsicle waffler waffling
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