WATTLE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Wattle

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/wˈɑtəl/ Listen

noun

Wattle n.

1.

A twig or flexible rod; hence, a hurdle made of such rods. "And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore."

2.

A rod laid on a roof to support the thatch.

3.

(Zool.)

(a)

A naked fleshy, and usually wrinkled and highly colored, process of the skin hanging from the chin or throat of a bird or reptile.

(b)

Barbel of a fish.

4.

(a)

The astringent bark of several Australian trees of the genus Acacia, used in tanning; called also wattle bark.

5.

Material consisting of wattled twigs, withes, etc., used for walls, fences, and the like. "The pailsade of wattle."

6.

(Bot.) In Australasia, any tree of the genus Acacia; so called from the wattles, or hurdles, which the early settlers made of the long, pliable branches or of the split stems of the slender species. The bark of such trees is also called wattle. See also Savanna wattle, under Savanna.

Wattle turkey. (Zool.) Same as Brush turkey.

verb

Wattle v. t. (past & past part. wattled; pres. part. wattling)

1.

To bind with twigs.

2.

To twist or interweave, one with another, as twigs; to form a network with; to plat; as, to wattle branches.

3.

To form, by interweaving or platting twigs. "The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes."

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Etymology of 'Wattle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wattle" Quotes from Famous Books

... of other things in the future than of tilling the little rood of earth, and living under the wattle roof, and being called Baas by neighbors a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. The cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields in the ruddy evening skies or in the dim, gray, misty mornings, said other things to him ...

— Stories of Childhood • Various

... beasts. On that day, I should add, as the Mazitu never dreamed of being attacked, all their stock were grazing on some distant veldt. In this space between the two fences were many hundreds of huts, wattle and grass built, but for the most part roofed with palm leaves, for here, in their separate quarters, dwelt the great majority of the inhabitants of Beza Town, of which the northern part was occupied by the king, the nobles and the captains. This ring of huts, which entirely surrounded the ...

— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... of the hill, on the riverine plain, stretches the old-time village with its roofs of palm. In the village dwell several hundred souls, almost entirely the officers and soldiers and their families. There is one long street. The one-story, daub-and-wattle houses have low eaves and steep sloping roofs of palm-leaves or of split palm-trunks. Under one or two old but small trees there are rude benches; and for a part of the length of the street there is a rough stone sidewalk. A little graveyard, some of the tombs very ...

— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... preparation of afternoon tea—a building of which the extreme heat made it almost possible to boil the kettle without lighting a fire! Naturally, no one used it for purposes of watching the play, but there was a row of wattle trees along one side of the ground, and seats placed in their shade made an excellent natural grand stand. Here the non-players betook themselves, while the doctor and the two boys went off to the spot where already most of the other players were gathered—a lean-to under a huge gum-tree, ...

— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... went white and red by turns, his nose flushing and paling like the wattle of an angry turkey; and he stammered out that he hoped M. de Radisson did not take umbrage at ...

— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

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