wafer

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.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈweɪfə/

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• Rhymes: -eɪfə(ɹ)

wafer (plural wafers)

1. A light, thin, flat biscuit/cookie.
2. (Christianity) A thin disk of consecrated unleavened bread used in communion.
3. A soft disk originally made of flour, and later of gelatin or a similar substance, used to seal letters, attach papers etc.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.

4. (electronics) A thin disk of silicon or other semiconductor on which an electronic circuit is produced.

• (religion): host

wafer (third-person singular simple present wafers, present participle wafering, simple past and past participle wafered)

1. (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 […].

Borrowed from English wafer. Doublet of gaufre.

• IPA^(key): /wɛ.fœʁ/, /we.fœʁ/, /wa.fœʁ/, /wa.fɛʁ/

• Audio

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wafer m (plural wafers)

1. wafer (electronic component)

Unadapted borrowing from English wafer.

• IPA^(key): /ˈva.fer/
• Rhymes: -afer

wafer m (invariable)

1. wafer (biscuit and electronic component)

wafer

1. Alternative form of wafre

Unadapted borrowing from English wafer.

wafer m (plural wafers)

1. wafer (type of biscuit)
2. (electronics) wafer (disk on which an electronic circuit is produced)