wattle

wattle¹ woven framework of sticks; Australian acacia

Etymology

The word for the woven framework is inherited from Middle English watel,^[2][3] inherited from Old English watel, also watol and watul.^[4][5][6][3] Its further origin is uncertain:^[7][8][9] the Oxford Dictionary of English calls it unknown.^[10] The OED finds it in no other Germanic language, but takes it as apparently cognate with wætla (“bandage for a wound”);^[7][11] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged add weþel (“bandage”).^[3][6] The OED suggests that it may represent a Germanic form with an irregular dental, from a root meaning "to intertwine", and that it may correspond to German Wadel (“brushwood”), a dialect word.^[7] Barnhart compares Old High German wadal (“bandage”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌳𐌰𐌽 (gawidan, “to bind, join”) and Old Irish fedan (“harness”), from Proto-Indo-European *wedh- (“to fasten”);^[12] Etymonline gives Proto-Germanic *wadlaz and, after Watkins, Proto-Indo-European *au- (“to weave”),^[3] while Köbler lists the Old English noun under the same Germanic form and refers it to a different root, "to blow".^[13] The name of the Australian acacia, first wattle-tree, comes from this word: the early settlers built fences and wattle-and-daub huts with its long pliant branches.^{[7][11][14][15][16]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Rods and twigs interwoven as a building material, especially for roofing: in the Old English translation of Bede, where the plural watelum renders Latin virgeorum.^[7][4] Barnhart dates this text to before 899,^[12] and the 1989 edition of the OED to c. 900.^[17] The Old English text of Luke 5:19 uses the plural for per tegulas, through the tiles.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the plural covered twigs, thatching and even tiles,^[3][12][4] and Middle English accounts of the 14th and 15th centuries record watul and wattilles as materials bought for building, with wattle-silver as a customary rent.^[2] The verb appears from the 14th century: 1377 in the OED, in Langland, and mid-14th century in Etymonline, at first of building a wall or fence with wattle.^[7][6][3] In the dialects the noun narrowed to a stick or wand (1570) and a hurdle (1640);^[7][11][6] Johnson (1755) still defines it as "a hurdle", and the verb as "to bind with twigs".^[18] Wattle and daub, twigs plastered with clay or mud, is recorded from 1808.^[7][3] Wright records the form waddle in Hertfordshire and Kent, and also wattle-gate, a hurdle of split wood.^[19] In Australia the word passed from the material to the acacias that supplied it: the Shorter Oxford dates this to the late 18th century, the current OED's first quotation to 1810.^[11][7] It then also meant the tree's flower (1867) and its bark (1893).^[7] In Australian rhyming slang, on wattle and daub, a wattle is a dirty person.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 900 – rods and twigs interwoven, as a building and roofing material.^[17][7]
• 1377 – verb, to build of wattle.^[7] Etymonline has the verb from the mid-14th century.^[3]
• 1486 – verb, to interlace twigs into wattle-work.^[7]
• 1570 – a rod or stick (dialect).^[7]
• 1640 – a hurdle (dialect).^[7]
• 1808 – wattle and daub.^[7][3]
• 1810 – an Australian acacia.^[7] The Shorter Oxford has it from the late 18th century.^[11]
• 1867 – the flower of the wattle.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A framework of rods or stakes woven with twigs or branches, used for fences, walls and roofs; also the material for it.^[21][6][7]
2. (in plural) The poles that support a thatched roof.^[6][22]
3. Any of the numerous Australian acacias, with spikes or heads of yellow or cream flowers.^[21][22][7]
4. The flower of such a tree.^[7][22]
5. (dialect) A rod, stick or wand.^[7][6][11]
6. (dialect) A hurdle.^[7][6][11]

Verb

1. To build something of wattle: They wattled the walls of the shed and thatched it.^[6][7]
2. To weave rods or twigs together to make wattle.^[6][7]
3. To bind posts or laths into a solid whole with flexible twigs.^[6][7]
4. (dialect) To enclose sheep with hurdles.^[6][7]

Word family

• wattling
• wattlework
• wattle and daub
• silver wattle
• golden wattle

wattle² fleshy appendage of a bird

Etymology

The word for the fleshy appendage is of unknown origin.^{[11][8][10][14]} The OED calls it obscure, and suggests an altered form of wartle, assimilated to wattle¹, although wartle is recorded only later.^[7] Older accounts treat it as the same as wattle, the framework: Skeat derived it through "something twined" and "woven stuff".^[23] This view rests on the reading “a watel ful of nobles” in two manuscripts of “Piers Plowman”, which would give "basket", then "bag", then a flap of flesh, but the OED thinks that reading is probably a scribal error for walet.^[7] Barnhart and Etymonline likewise doubt the connection,^[12][3] and Weekley suggested a link with wad instead.^[15] Johnson (1755) reported Skinner's derivation from German waghelen (“to shake”).^[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fleshy lobe hanging from the head or neck of a bird: 1513, in a document printed in S. Glover's history of Derbyshire.^[7][12] Etymonline dates it to the 1510s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word soon spread from fowls to other creatures: to a flap of skin on the neck of some pigs (1570), jocularly to humans (1560s in Etymonline), to the barbels of fish (1655, in Walton) and to the jaws of sheep and goats (1725).^[7][3][11] Cotgrave's French–English dictionary equates waddles or wattles with the growths on the throats of some hogs,^[15] and Johnson (1755) defines the word as "the barbs, or loose red flesh that hangs below the cock's bill", with Walton's fish among his quotations.^[18] Collins now extends it to lizards.^[21]

Timeline

• 1513 – a fleshy lobe on the head or neck of a bird.^[7][12]
• 1560s – jocularly, of humans.^[3]
• 1570 – a flap of skin on the throat of a pig.^[7]
• 1655 – a barbel of a fish.^[7]
• 1725 – a similar growth on the jaws of sheep or goats.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fleshy, often brightly coloured lobe hanging from the head or neck of certain birds, such as the turkey, or from the throat of some lizards.^[21][7][11]
2. A similar flap of skin on the neck or jaws of some pigs, sheep and goats.^[7][11]
3. A barbel of a fish.^[7][11]

Word family

• wattled
• wattlebird