Forms: 4–6 wafre, 4–5 waffre, 5–7 waffer, 8 Sc. waffor, weffer, 5 wafler, wafir, wayfire, wafyre, 6 wafyrre, 5–6 wafur 5–7 waiffur, (5 -er), 6 whafer, 7 wapher, 5– wafer. [ME. wafre, a. AF. wafre, ONF. waufre (= Central F. gaufre, gofre, whence GOFER), adopted, with change of l into r, from MLG. wâfel (mod.LG. wâfel, wafel) = early mod.Du. waefel, now wafel (WFris. waffel), whence WAFFLE; the mod.G. waffel, Sw. våffla, Da. vaffel are from LG.
As the F. gaufre, wafer, waffle, has also the sense of honeycomb, it is inferred that the Teut. word had originally this meaning, and is cogn. w. OHG. wabo, MHG., mod.G. wabe, honeycomb; but neither Du. nor LG. seems to have preserved this sense.]
1. A very light thin crisp cake, baked between wafer-irons; formerly often eaten with wine, now chiefly with ices; in later use sometimes rolled, sometimes serving as the under part of a macaroon. Cf. WAFRON.
The simile ‘thin as a wafer,’ originally belonging to this sense, is now commonly associated with sense 3.
[1295. Will N. Longespee, in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1900), July, 524. Tria paria ferrea ad wafras, neulas, et galettas faciendas.]
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIII. 264. [A waferer says:] Alle Londoun I leue liketh wel my wafres.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s T., 193. He sente hire … wafres pipyng hoot out of the gleede.
1442. in Bekynton’s Corr. (Rolls), II. 233. Ro. Savage, et Robertus serviens domini Regentis, portaverunt waiffers et poma.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, in Babees Bk. (1868), 123. For þese may marre many a man changynge his astate, but ȝiff he haue aftur, hard chese, wafurs, with wyne ypocrate.
c. 1500. For to serve a Lord, ibid., 368. Thenne aftur wafers and frute spended, all maner thinge shalbe take uppe and avoyded.
1530. Tindale, Exod. xvi. 31. The taste of it [sc. manna] was lyke vnto wafers made with honye [so 1611].
1546. Wriothesley, Chron. (1875), I. 165. My lord major did electe and chose that daie when he was at waffers and ipocras Mr. Richard Jervis.
1572. Huloet (ed. Higins), Wafre, suche as they geue to younge children, crustulum.
1577. Grange, Golden Aphrod., etc. P j b. Yea, yea, she treades so nice, she would not wafers breake.
1608. Bonham, in Topsell’s Serpents, 312. The people of India … doe make of these Wormes diuers iuncats, as we doe Tarts, Marchpanes, Wafers, and Cheese-cakes.
1619. Drayton, Idea, viii. Thy Lips, with age, as any Wafer thinne.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Chances, II. i. A womans oathes are wafers, breake with making.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, I. i. (1682), 2. The inner Coat [of the bean] … so far shrinking up, as to seem only the roughness of the outer, somewhat resembling Wafers under Maquaroons.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Engl. Housekpr. (1778), 277. To make Wafers. Take two spoonfuls of cream, two of sugar, the same of flour, and one spoonful of orange flower water, beat them well together for half an hour, then make your wafer tongs hot,… bake them on a stove fire, as they are baked roll them round a stick like a spiggot, as soon as they are cold, they will be very crisp.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., xi. III. 251. The Major having finished the bottle of claret,… together with a large plate of wafers.
1834. Esther Copley, Housekpr.’s Guide (1838), 347. Wafers. Sweeten dried flour with loaf sugar; add a little powdered mace; make it into a stiff batter with cream. There are irons for the purpose of baking them…. They are used for the bottom of maccaroons and some other cakes.
1883. R. Haldane, Workshop Rec., Ser. II. 155/2. (Confectionery) Wafers.—Take 4 oz. sugar, 4 oz. butter, 8 oz. flour [etc.]. Ibid., 156/1. Close the tongs immediately; put them on the fire, turning them occasionally until the wafer is done.
2. The thin disk of unleavened bread used at the Eucharist in the Western Church before the Reformation, and subsequently in the ritual of Roman Catholics, Lutherans and some Anglicans. Cf. OBLEY.
1559. Q. Eliz., Injunct., D 3 b. The vsuall bread and wafer, heretofore named singing Cakes, which serued for the vse of the priuate Masse.
1570. Gilby, in Part of a Register (1593), 16. The adoration of the Sacrament, in the Countrey where they knocke and kneele to a Wafer, is a popishe pollicie.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 94. The Widow … bestows Holway, a kind of Sacramental Wafer.
1719. Swift, Abstr. Hist. Eng., Stephen, Wks. 1768, IV. 297. The English, upon a certain engine, raised the mast of a ship, on the top whereof, in a silver box, they put the consecrated wafer.
1853. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. xix. 249. To tremble before a consecrated wafer is spurious reverence.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, I. 85. As they went To eat the bishop’s wafer at the church.
1862. Sat. Rev., XIII. 8 Feb., 159/2. Many of these unbelievers … obtained and outraged consecrated wafers.
3. A small disk of flour mixed with gum and non-poisonous coloring matter, or of gelatine or the like similarly colored, which when moistened is used for sealing letters, attaching papers, or receiving the impression of a seal.
[1635: see wafer-seal in 6.]
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 305, ¶ 6. Pen and Ink, Wax and Wafers, with the like Necessaries for Politicians.
1749. Johnson, Lett. to Miss Porter, 12 July. You frighted me with your black wafer, for I was afraid your letter had brought me ill news.
1797. W. Johnston, trans. Beckmann’s Hist. Invent., I. 226. Mr. Speiss [Ger.] has made an observation … that the oldest seal with a red wafer, he has ever yet found, is on a letter written by D. Krapf, at Spires, in the year 1624, to the government at Bayreuth.
1800. Mar. Edgeworth, Belinda, xv. Lady Delacour … began … to put wafers into several notes which she had been writing.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 729. In every kind of tracing, the different papers which are employed upon each other, should be fastened together by wafers.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, liii. Poor men always use messengers instead of the post. Who has not had their letters, with the wafers wet, and the announcement that a person is waiting in the hall?
1883. S. C. Hall, Retrospect, I. 15. To put a wafer on a letter was a thing seldom done.
b. transf. Applied to a round spot.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxviii. (1856), 236. Deck covered in with black felt, the frozen condensation patching it with large white wafers of snow.
1897. Outing, XXIX. 543/1. The Dalmatian, or ‘coach dog,’ white with black wafers stuck all over him.
4. Med. A thin leaf of paste, used to form a cachet for the administration of a powder.
1887. Buck’s Handbk. Med. Sci., IV. 699/1. Wafers are of two forms. One style consists of two watch-glass shaped bodies, whose edges, upon moistening, will cohere, leaving a central space for enclosure of the powder…. The other style consists of a single large, thin, circular sheet of wafer-material. Such sheet dipped into water, becomes flexible, and … is used as a literal wrap for the dose of powder.
1913. Mrs. Stratton-Porter, Laddie, iv. (1916), 74. She looked exactly as she does when the wafer bursts and the quinine gets in her mouth.
5. Gunnery. A kind of primer.
1867. J. T. Headley, Farragut & Nav. Commanders, 73. Not a gun went off. As it looked like rain, the gunners had removed the ‘wafers’ by which they were discharged.
6. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 1) wafer-baker, -maker, roller; wafer-like adj.; (sense 3) wafer-seal; also wafer-sealed, -torn adjs.; wafer-biscuit = sense 1; wafer-bread, unleavened bread to be used at the Eucharist in the form of wafers; wafer-cachet (see sense 4); † wafer-god, an opprobrious term for the consecrated host; wafer-iron, an apparatus for baking wafers, consisting of two iron blades between which the paste is held (also pair of wafer-irons); † wafer pancake, a kind of pancake made thin like a wafer; † wafer-paper, a preparation of paste in thin sheets, used in cookery and pharmacy (see 4); wafer stamp, a hand-stamp for impressing a device on wafers; wafer-tongs = wafer-iron; † wafer-wall, nonce-wd., a wall flimsy as a wafer; † wafer-woman, a woman who sold wafers (cf. WAFERER, WAFRESTRE); † wafer-work, a kind of ornamental work in which wafers were used to form a pattern. Also WAFER-CAKE.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Oublieur, a *wafer baker.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xliv. The hulking fellow carrying the *wafer-biscuits.
1565. Abp. Parker, To Sir W. Cecil, 30 April, in Corr. (Parker Soc.), 240. These were the orders which they must observe; to wear the cap appointed by Injunction,… to communicate kneeling in *wafer-bread.
1637. Bk. Comm. Prayer Ch. Scot., Commun., rubric, Though it be lawfull to have wafer bread.
c. 1890. M. Creighton, in Life & Lett. (1904), II. 57. The use of wafer bread is undesirable and should be discontinued.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 992. Chloralamide … may be given in doses of 20 to 50 grains in *wafer cachet.
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon. (1634), 17. Certain Thieves having stolen the Silver Box wherein the *Wafer-Gods use to lie.
a. 1743. Savage, Epist. to Walpole, 79. Lo! the priest’s hand the wafergod supplies.
1857. Pusey, Real Presence, iii. (1869), 330. People have profanely spoken of ‘wafer-gods.’ They might as well have spoken of ‘fire-gods,’ of the manifestation of God in the flaming fire in the bush.
1459. Paston Lett., I. 499. Item, ij. payre *wafer irens.
1551. Will T. Fletcher, Glastonb. Oon whafer yron.
1725. Bradley’s Family Dict., s.v. Wafer, The Wafer-Iron is to be heated and rubb’d on both sides … with fresh Butter.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. 302. Coaxing her to eat a *waferlike slice of bread-and-butter.
1906. ‘A. Hope,’ Sophy of Kravonia, I. v. 56. Of course the mention of the waferlike mark puts her identity beyond question.
1911. J. Ward, Roman Era Brit., xii. 220. Wafer-like bone discs … are also of common occurrence.
1530. Palsgr., 286/1. *Wafyrmaker, gaufrier.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, V. Pantagr. Prognost., v. 235. Clergy-Taylors, Wafer-makers, Rosary-makers.
1852. Brande, Dict. Sci. etc., Suppl., Wafers are coloured with various materials…. The wafer makers are very unwilling to show the process.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Engl. Housekpr. (1778), 165. To make *Wafer Pancakes.
1718. Mrs. Eales, Receipts, 70. Then lay ’em in Lumps on *Wafer-Paper, and set ’em on Papers in an Oven.
1773. G. A. Stevens, Trip to Portsmouth, ii. 17. That ever any school-fellow of mine should play truant from old port, and good roast beef, to live upon whey, and wafer-paper!
1860. R. Fowler, Med. Vocab., Wafer-paper, an article of confectionery, now employed for the exhibition of nauseous electuaries, &c.
1889. R. Wells, Bread & Biscuit Baker, 46. Cover the tins or wires with wafer paper, and lay out the biscuits.
1814. Gastronomy (1822), 149. The pastry-bakers, cake-makers, and *wafer-rollers.
1635. Patent Office, No. 82. Licencing … him and his deputies for the sole makeing of the *wafer seales and he wilbe bound to sell one hundred of them for a penny.
1728. Fielding, Love in several Masques, III. iii. 33. ’Tis but *Wafer-sealed. I’ll open it and read it.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxxix. He took up the *wafer-stamp, and began stamping capital F’s all over his legs.
1763. Ochtertyre House Bk. (S.H.S.), 250. 1 pair *weffer tongs.
1769. [see 1].
1883. R. Haldane, Workshop Rec., Ser. II. 156/1. Make the wafer-tongs hot over the hole of a stove or clear fire.
1832. Boston Herald, 29 May, 4/4. The error arose from our letter being *wafer-torn where the figures were written.
1620. Quarles, Feast for Worms, Introd. B 2 b. Thy *Wafer-walles at dread Iehouahs blast Shall quake.
1607. Beaumont, Woman-Hater, II. i. ’Twas no set meeting certainly; for there was no *wafer-woman with her these three days on my knowledge.
1623. Fletcher, etc., Maid in Mill, I. iii. Am I not able … to deliver A Letter handsomly! Is that such a hard thing? Why every wafer-woman will undertake it.
1789. Charlotte Smith, Ethelinde (1814), II. 169. Miss Ludford’s ingenious productions in shell-work, in *wafer-work, in filigree and coloured paper.
1817. Mar. Edgeworth, Harrington, vi. She sat at some fashionable kind of work—wafer work, I think it was called, a work which has been long since consigned to the mice.
