wafer

[wey-fer]

noun

1. a thin, crisp cake or biscuit, often sweetened and flavored.

2. a thin disk of unleavened bread, used in the Eucharist, as in the Roman Catholic Church.

3. a thin disk of dried paste, gelatin, adhesive paper, or the like, used for sealing letters, attaching papers, etc.

4. Medicine/Medical.,  a thin sheet of dry paste or the like, used to enclose a powder to be swallowed.

5. any small, thin disk, as a washer or piece of insulation.

6. 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)

1. to seal, close, or attach by means of a wafer or wafers.

   to wafer a letter.

wafer

/ ˈweɪfə /

noun

1. a thin crisp sweetened biscuit with different flavourings, served with ice cream, etc

2. Christianity a thin disc of unleavened bread used in the Eucharist as celebrated by the Western Church

3. pharmacol an envelope of rice paper enclosing a medicament

4. electronics a large single crystal of semiconductor material, such as silicon, on which numerous integrated circuits are manufactured and then separated

5. a small thin disc of adhesive material used to seal letters, documents, etc

verb

1. (tr) to seal, fasten, or attach with a wafer

Other Word Forms

• waferlike adjective
• wafery adjective
• wafer-like adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of wafer¹

1350–1400; Middle English wafre < Middle Dutch wafer, variant of wafel waffle ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of wafer¹

C14: from Old Northern French waufre, from Middle Low German wāfel; related to _waffle ¹

Example Sentences

Within 15 minutes, I secured my scoop of breast milk ice cream, which came in a Frida-themed cup and was topped with a wafer that read “I tried breast milk ice cream.”

From Salon

Food in pouches makes up more than a third of this market and there's been a rise in sales of snacks like fruit and vegetable-based straws, puffs and wafers.

From BBC

Layers of crisp lemon wafer cookies, lemon zest–spiked whipped cream and a tangy smear of lemon curd between each tier.

From Salon

He said: "The finances aren't good, the margins are wafer thin. It's a lot of sawing for not much sawdust, as my grandfather used to say."

From BBC

"This is the most advanced wafer in the US right now," he explains.

From BBC

Related Words

• biscuit 
• cake 
• candy 
• cookie 
• cracker