wattle
Americannoun
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wattles
plural
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Often wattles. a number of rods or stakes interwoven with twigs or tree branches for making fences, walls, etc.
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wattles, a number of poles laid on a roof to hold thatch.
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(in Australia) any of various acacias whose shoots and branches were used by the early colonists for wattles, now valued especially for their bark, which is used in tanning.
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a fleshy lobe or appendage hanging down from the throat or chin of certain birds, as the domestic chicken or turkey.
verb (used with object)
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wattles,
present (3rd person singular)
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wattled,
past participle, past
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wattling
present participle
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to bind, wall, fence, etc., with wattle or wattles.
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to roof or frame with or as if with wattles.
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to form into a basketwork; interweave; interlace.
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to make or construct by interweaving twigs or branches.
to wattle a fence.
adjective
noun
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a frame of rods or stakes interwoven with twigs, branches, etc, esp when used to make fences
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the material used in such a construction
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a loose fold of skin, often brightly coloured, hanging from the neck or throat of certain birds, lizards, etc
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any of various chiefly Australian acacia trees having spikes of small brightly coloured flowers and flexible branches, which were used by early settlers for making fences See also golden wattle
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a southern African caesalpinaceous tree, Peltophorum africanum, with yellow flowers
verb
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to construct from wattle
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to bind or frame with wattle
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to weave or twist (branches, twigs, etc) into a frame
adjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wattlesimple
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wattlessimple
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have wattledperfect
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has wattledperfect
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am wattlingprogressive
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are wattlingprogressive
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is wattlingprogressive
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have been wattlingperfect progressive
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has been wattlingperfect progressive
Past
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wattledsimple
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had wattledperfect
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was wattlingprogressive
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were wattlingprogressive
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had been wattlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wattle
before 900; (noun) Middle English wattel, Old English watul covering, akin to wætla bandage; (v.) Middle English wattelen, derivative of the noun
Vocabulary lists containing wattle
Animals (Zoology) - Middle School
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Animals (Zoology) - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The golden wattle, Australia's national floral emblem, is also represented.
From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2026
In comparison, carbon-capture plantations are usually monocultures and are dominated globally by just five tree species -- teak, mahogany, cedar, silk oak, and black wattle -- that are grown for timber, pulp, or agroforestry.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2023
The seasonal link between, say, a wattle flowering and the arrival of fish species is breaking down.
From Salon ● Nov. 28, 2022
The queen’s death on Sept. 8 came in the Southern Hemisphere spring when wattle blooms, its golden flowers and green leaves reflecting Australia’s national colors in what has become a symbol of unity.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2022
It is a warm winter day, as warm as a spring day in England, and around the fort, men are outside, working on everything from repairing wattle and daub walls to shucking corn.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
Jones said the hen — which has brown feathers and a red comb and wattles — is believed to be a Rhode Island red.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 2, 2022
Crews were also placing straw tubing known as wattles along stream edges to prevent sediment from washing into the waterway amid rain or snowfall.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2021
“It’s realism on top, see,” he says as he shows off the ceramic lid with a perfect, proud chicken head, the comb, the wattles, the puffed breast.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 25, 2019
Together, they almost look like the wattles of the two turkeys she pardons in grand, ridiculous, Thanksgiving presidential tradition.
From New York Times ● May 22, 2016
He pulled the wattles of skin at his throat again and gazed at the ceiling for a moment.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
Although I suppose if either was your cousin, while you’d be portrayed as mad and wattled, the portrait would be worth millions.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2021
Our near silence left undisturbed an African jacana, whose long toes enable it to spread its weight over floating lily pads, and a rare pair of wattled cranes—birds that stand almost 6 feet tall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2015
Skirmishes between lovers and haters of the wattled invaders have existed since the ducks made their way here from South and Central America.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 13, 2015
Although I suppose if either was your cousin, while you'd be portrayed as mad and wattled, the portrait would be worth millions.
From Slate ● Mar. 18, 2014
A little man, with neck wattled blue and red with queer suggestion of a turkey’s characteristics, lurched out of a group and came at Pulaski Britt with a meek and watery smile of welcome.
From King Spruce, A Novel by Holman Day
A bacon bouse of two-score ribs, A wattling of tripe—support of clans— Of every food pleasant to man, Meseemed the whole was gathered there.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
The term wattling is applied to such constructions as employ by interlacing, plaiting, etc., somewhat heavy, rigid, or slightly pliable parts, as rods, boughs, canes, and vines.
From Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States Thirteenth Annual Report of the Beaurau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896 pages 3-46 by William Henry Holmes
In connection with this wattling and daubing of Virginia buildings, the two early churches on Eastern Shore are believed to have been puncheoned edifices.
From Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century by Henry Chandlee Forman
If brush is scarce, gabions may be made with 6 ins. of wattling at each end, the middle left open.
From Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition by James A. (James Alfred) Moss
It was built of logs of wood and wattling.
From Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844. by Andrew Archibald Paton
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