wafer
Americannoun
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wafers
plural
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a thin, crisp cake or biscuit, often sweetened and flavored.
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a thin disk of unleavened bread, used in the Eucharist, as in the Roman Catholic Church.
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a thin disk of dried paste, gelatin, adhesive paper, or the like, used for sealing letters, attaching papers, etc.
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Medicine/Medical. a thin sheet of dry paste or the like, used to enclose a powder to be swallowed.
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any small, thin disk, as a washer or piece of insulation.
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Electronics. a thin slice of semiconductor used as a base material on which single transistors or integrated-circuit components are formed.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a thin crisp sweetened biscuit with different flavourings, served with ice cream, etc
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Christianity a thin disc of unleavened bread used in the Eucharist as celebrated by the Western Church
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pharmacol an envelope of rice paper enclosing a medicament
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electronics a large single crystal of semiconductor material, such as silicon, on which numerous integrated circuits are manufactured and then separated
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a small thin disc of adhesive material used to seal letters, documents, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of wafer
1350–1400; Middle English wafre < Middle Dutch wafer, variant of wafel waffle 1
Explanation
A very thin, crispy cookie is called a wafer. Chocolate cream sandwiched with wafers is a delicious treat. In addition to a cookie, wafer can also refer to the thin bread used during the Christian ritual of Holy Communion. These wafers are small and round. The word is used for other thin, disc-shaped objects as well, like an electronic wafer, a circular sliver of material that helps form a circuit. But the most common meaning is still the original "thin cake of paste," from a root that wafer shares with waffle.
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:
That’s because Newman estimates high-bandwidth flash will need three to four times the amount of wafer capacity per exabyte, since it requires more on-chip space.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
That appeared to be reflected in SMIC’s wafer revenue from smartphones, which made up 25.2% of total quarterly revenue, up from 18.9% in the first quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Despite aggressive expansion, the company’s overall wafer utilization rate was 93.7% in the June quarter, up from 93.1% in the March quarter, it said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
What will is how much of each company’s wafer supply runs through China, which is what the disclosures below reveal.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
They even tried a piece of bread shaped like the wafer with bread and jam and it was no use.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
They adapt the material to a lithography-based manufacturing method suitable for making devices on wafers.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
Caltech researchers have found a way to move light across silicon wafers with exceptionally little signal loss, reaching levels at visible wavelengths that approach those of optical fiber.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
DUV machines project microscopic circuit patterns onto silicon wafers that are then etched and processed into memory and mature chips.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
This would produce the silicon wafers needed to make quantum-computing processors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
The women then unfolded blankets that were stacked against the shelter wall like giant wafers.
From "Tasting the Sky" by Ibtisam Barakat
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
