wafer
See also: Wafer
English
![](Images/wiktionary/Nilla-Wafers.jpg.webp)
Some Nilla wafers.
![](Images/wiktionary/Caramel-colored-wafer-sticks.jpg.webp)
A rolled wafer.
![](Images/wiktionary/Hostia_i_komunikanty.JPG.webp)
Communion wafers (on the right).
Etymology
From Middle English wafre, from Anglo-Norman wafre, waufre (Old French gaufre), from a Germanic source. Compare Middle Low German wāfel, Middle Dutch wafel (“honeycomb”), West Flemish wafer. See also waffle.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈweɪfə/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪfə(ɹ)
Noun
wafer (plural wafers)
- A light, thin, flat biscuit/cookie.
- (Christianity) A thin disk of consecrated unleavened bread used in communion.
- A soft disk originally made of flour, and later of gelatin or a similar substance, used to seal letters, attach papers etc.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973 edition, page 202:
- The house supplied him with a wafer for his present purpose, with which, having sealed his letter, he returned hastily towards the brook side, in order to search for the things which he had there lost.
-
- (electronics) A thin disk of silicon or other semiconductor on which an electronic circuit is produced.
Synonyms
- (religion): host
Derived terms
Derived terms
- Anzac wafer
- communion wafer
- Neapolitan wafer
- silicon wafer
- thin as a wafer
- vanilla wafer
- wafer ash
- wafer bread
- wafer iron
- wafer prober
- wafer trapdoor spider
- wafer-scale intergration
- wafer-thin
- waferboard
- waferish
- waferless
- waferlike
- waferscale
- wafery
Translations
biscuit
|
religious token
|
lump of sealing substance
|
electronics
|
Verb
wafer (third-person singular simple present wafers, present participle wafering, simple past and past participle wafered)
- (transitive) To seal or fasten with a wafer.
- 1775, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin 2001, 4 March:
- [M]y Father, who knew he was well, wafered the paragraph upon a sheet of paper, and sent to his Lodgings.
- 1913, Joseph Conrad, Chance, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, p. 81:
- [T]he beginning of de Barral's end became manifest to the public in the shape of a half-sheet of note-paper wafered by the four corners on the closed door […].
- 1775, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin 2001, 4 March:
French
Etymology
Borrowed from English wafer. Doublet of gaufre.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /wɛ.fœʁ/, /we.fœʁ/, /wa.fœʁ/, /wa.fɛʁ/
Audio (file)
Noun
wafer m (plural wafers)
- wafer (electronic component)
Italian
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from English wafer.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈva.fer/
- Rhymes: -afer
Noun
wafer m (invariable)
- wafer (biscuit and electronic component)
Middle English
Noun
wafer
- Alternative form of wafre
Portuguese
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from English wafer.
Noun
wafer m (plural wafers)
- wafer (type of biscuit)
- (electronics) wafer (disk on which an electronic circuit is produced)