wafer

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wafre,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman wafre,^[2][5][6] a variant of Old Northern French waufre (“honeycomb, wafer”),^[2][5][6][3] which corresponds to central French gaufre, the source of goffer.^[2][7][8] The French word is from Middle Low German wāfel (“waffle”), with l changed to r;^{[2][5][9][10]} the same word is wafel in Dutch, the source of waffle.^[2][7] Barnhart and Etymonline instead think of Frankish *wafel or another Germanic source, comparing wafer in Flemish,^[11][6] and Klein derives it from the Frankish form.^[12] Because French gaufre also means honeycomb, the OED infers that the Germanic word first meant "honeycomb", cognate with Old High German wabo and German Wabe (“honeycomb”);^[2][13][12] Ayto and Klein connect it with the Germanic base of weave,^[7][12][14] and the American Heritage Dictionary with Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to weave”).^[3] Waffel, Swedish våffla and Danish vaffel are from Low German.^[2] Anglo-Norman gafre, waffle or wafer, is recorded from about 1185.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A very light, thin, crisp cake, baked between wafer irons: 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[2] Barnhart has waffre from 1368,^[16][11] and Etymonline notes that it was at first apparently something like a waffle.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Ayto and Weekley explain the word as at first a small cake with a honeycomb pattern, as French gaufre still is, a sense the English word has lost.^[7][13] The thin disc of unleavened bread used at the Eucharist is called a wafer from 1559, in Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions;^[2][11] Etymonline dates it to the 1550s.^[6] From 1635 a wafer was also a small disc of flour and gum, or of gelatin, moistened to seal letters,^[2][8] and in 1748 Samuel Richardson used the verb, to fasten with a wafer, in Clarissa.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined the word as a thin cake, quoting Tusser and Pope.^[17] Later uses for thin discs and slices followed: in medicine a leaf of paste wrapping a powder (1848), in gunnery a kind of primer (1867), an ice-cream sandwich (1936, in Noël Coward), in electronics a thin slice of semiconductor crystal (1956), and a very small gold ingot (1974).^[2]

Timeline

• 1368 – waffre, a very thin cake.^[11]
• 1377 – a thin crisp cake baked between wafer irons.^[2]
• 1559 – the Eucharistic wafer.^[2][11]
• 1635 – a disc of gum or gelatin for sealing letters.^[2]
• 1748 – verb, to fasten with a wafer.^[2][4]
• 1848 – a leaf of paste for taking a powdered medicine.^[2]
• 1956 – a thin slice of semiconductor crystal.^[2]
• 1974 – a very small gold ingot.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thin, crisp, usually sweet biscuit, often served with ice cream: She tucked a chocolate wafer into each bowl of sorbet.^[10][4][2]
2. A thin round piece of unleavened bread used in the Eucharist.^[10][4][2]
3. A thin slice of a semiconductor crystal, such as silicon, on which integrated circuits are made.^[10][2]
4. A small thin disc of adhesive material, formerly used to seal letters and documents.^[10][2]
5. A thin envelope of rice paper enclosing a dose of medicine.^[10][2]

Verb

1. To seal or fasten with a wafer.^[4][2]
2. To cut a rod of silicon or the like into wafers.^[4]
3. To press hay or the like into small compact cakes.^[4]

Word family

• waferlike
• wafer-thin
• waferboard

Related words

• waffle
• goffer
• weave
• web

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
16. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.