# waffle

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈwɒf.l̩/ · frequency rank #19,734

## Definitions
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.

## 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.

## Easily confused with
- **wale** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/waffle-vs-wale)
- **waddle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/waddle-vs-waffle)

## Common misspellings (7)
`awffle`, `waffel`, `wafflle`, `wafle`, `waflfe`, `wfafle`, `wwaffle`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/waffle