| 释义 |
▪ I. wattle, n.1|ˈwɒt(ə)l|
Forms: 1 watul, pl. watla (North.), watelas; 4 wattel, 5 wattyl(le, 6 wattill, Anglo-Irish vattill (Sc. pl. vatlis), 6–7 wattell, 7 wadle, 9 dial. waddle, 6– wattle.
[OE. watul (not found in other Teut. langs.) of uncertain origin, but app. cogn. w. wætla, (? wǽtla) bandage for a wound (Sax. Leechdoms II. 208).
It may possibly represent O.Teut. *waðlo-z (with irregular treatment of the dental before liquid as in bottle n.1, bottom n.):—pre-Teut. *wodhlo-s, f. *wodh- (: *wedh-) to intertwine, plait, see weave: weed n. If so, it may correspond to mod.G. dial. wadel brushwood (see Grimm's Deutsches Wb. XIII. 2821, s.v. Wedel.]
I.
1. a. In pl. and collect. sing. Rods or stakes, interlaced with twigs or branches of trees, used to form fences and the walls and roofs of buildings. Also, rods and branches of trees collected for this purpose.
c900Bæda's Hist. iii. xvi. (1890) 202 And micelne ad ᵹesomnade on beamum and on raftrum and on waᵹum and on watelum [mistransl. of L. parietum virgeorum] and on ðeacon. c950Lindisf. Gosp. Luke v. 19 Astiᵹon..onufa hus ðerh ða watla [c 1000 Ags. Gosp. þurh þa watelas; Vulg. per tegulas]. a1000in Napier OE. Glosses ii. 489 Tegulis, watelum. c1000ælfric Gloss. ix. xxvi. (Z) 52/13 Teges, watul. 1382Durham Halm. Rolls (Surtees) 175 Habebit meremium..et virg. et wattels, cabul., et ferramenta. 1453–4Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 150, j fothr' de palis et virgis et j fothr' del Wattylle. 1488–9Finchale Priory (Surtees) p. ccclxxxii, Et in adquisitione wattyllis et cariagio straminis et wattyllis iiijs. xd. 1510Galway Archives in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 394 Anny man to bring in wode, troffe, or vattill. 1547–8Burgh Rec. Stirling (1887) 52 And the remanent of the said tenement..standand sufficiently in gret tymmer..and in kaboris, wattillis and stray, thak and devot, sobirly apperand watir ticht. 1563in Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1567, 444/2 Colligere lie vatlis et fallyne tymmer de dicta silva pro reparatione et edificatione domorum. 1586Hooker Hist. Irel. in Holinshed II. 12/1 And there they cast a trench, and builded a little castell or hold, with turffes and wattell. 1632Lithgow Trav. (1906) 374 These Fabrickes are advanced three or foure yardes high,..erected in a singular Frame, of smoake-torne straw..and Raine-dropping watles. 1633Stafford Pac. Hib. iii. viii. 313 Having all the day before employed a great partie of men to the Wood..to fetch more wattle, to make Gabions. 1699W. Dampier Voy. II. i. 43 The Walls are either Mud, or Watle bedawbed over. 1834Pringle Afr. Sk. vi. 218 Stretching a large tree across it [sc. the path]..and fastening it with thongs and wattles at either end. 1836Thirlwall Greece III. xx. 146 Layers of stiff clay, pressed down close on wattles of reed. 1851–62D. Wilson Preh. Ann. II. iv. i. 189 The earliest British churches were built of wattles. 1867Tennyson Holy Grail 63 And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore. 1868Milman St. Paul's ii. 21 Its growth..from enclosures of wattel and timber to stately buildings of stone. 1886Stevenson Kidnapped xxiii, The walls were of wattle and covered with moss.
b. wattle and daub (dab): interwoven twigs plastered with clay or mud, as a building material for huts, cottages, etc.; chiefly attrib. Also (rarely) daub and wattle, mud and wattle.
1808T. Batchelor Agric. Bedford 21 The cottages and barns..are built with wood frame work, and clay plaster upon a kind of hedge work of splints, which is called wattle and dab. 1836Ross Hobart Town Almanack 66 Wattle and daub. [Instructions for using the branches of the black or the green wattle (see sense 4 below) for this kind of construction.] 1852W. Wickenden Hunchback's Chest 311 Strong wattle and daub walls. 1855Dickens etc. Holly-tree Inn iv. 26/1 Robinson..stood at the door of a considerable erection of wattle-and-dab. 1872–4Jefferies Toilers of Field (1892) 183 One wall of the house..was only ‘wattle and daub’ (i.e., lath and plaster). 1883Olive Schreiner Afr. Farm ii. iii, His house was a little square daub-and-wattle building. 1891Kipling City Dreadf. Nt. 36 There are no houses here—nothing but acres and acres, it seems, of foul wattle-and-dab huts. 1901Archæol. Jrnl. (Instit.) Mar. 68 A light and simple erection of wattle-and-daub. 1913Engl. Rev. Aug. 59, I saw the house, a mud and wattle rancho.
c. attrib. and Comb., as wattle-canoe, wattle-gate, wattle-wall, wattle-work; † wattle-silver, some kind of feudal impost; wattle-wood West Indian (see quot.).
1893Sir W. W. Hunter in Skrine Life (1901) 424 In the bay, the fishermen use the *wattle-canoes, or curraghs, which their ancestors used at the time of the Roman invasion.
1759Universal Chron. 3–10 Feb. 45/3 The person who committed the robbery, by the help of a short ladder artfully spliced to a *Wattle-gate, set against a closet window, took out a pane of glass, [etc.].
1263in Cal. Inquis. Post Mortem (1904) I. 173 *Watelselver. 1271Ibid. 253 [Customs called] Mortonefar', Watelselver, Wodelode, [etc.]. 1484Anc. Deed 24 Dec. (P.R.O.) D. 1102 Withe certene Custume siluer to the foresaide Maner perteynyng callid Revesiluer Watel⁓siluer and Werkesiluer of the Tenauntez of Charletone [near Steyning, Sussex].
1886Athenæum 24 Apr. 556/3 These were generally huts built of logs or with *wattle-walls.
1864Grisebach Flora W. Ind. Isl. 788 *Wattle-wood, Lætia Thamnia.
1860H. Mayhew Upper Rhine vi. 427 A city built out in the water, and surrounded with a thick *wattle⁓work of piles. 1878Keary Dawn Hist. ii. 30 The huts were made of wattle-work. 1900Baring-Gould Bk. Dartmoor 42 The Britons had brought with them their great aptitude for wattle-work.
2. A hurdle. dial.
1640Somner Antiq. Canterb. 10 The Citizens after much suit to the Monks, prevailed with them..to sell them of their wood to make hurdles or wattles withall, for the defence of their City. 1681Worlidge Syst. Agric., Dict. Rust. 334 Wattels also signify spleeted Gates or Hurdles. 1697in Sussex Archæol. Collect. VI. 195 Two wagon Ropes three Rakes 00 04 00 Thirty wattelles 01 10 00. 1805R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 674 The flatted hurdle, or what in some districts is termed waddle, is much preferable to the close⁓rodded or wattled kind. 1822Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) I. 129 This hazle..furnishes rods wherewith to make fences; but its principal use is, to make wattles for the folding of sheep in the fields. 1857Hughes Tom Brown i. vii, The scent [in Hares-and-hounds] lies thick right across another meadow and into a ploughed field, where the pace begins to tell; then over a good wattle with a ditch on the other side. 1889D. E. Hurst Horsham (ed. 2) Gloss. 270 Wattle, a hurdle of a particular kind, made by weaving in long thin stems of underwood.
3. a. A wand, rod, stick. dial.
1570Levins Manip. 38/26 A wattle, rod, vibex. 1726Swift Gulliver iv. x, I..cut down several oak wattles, about the thickness of a walking-staff, and some larger pieces. [To build a canoe.] 1786Burns Auld Farmer's Salut. x, Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle O' saugh or hazle. 1831S. Lover Leg. & Stor. Irel., Paddy the Piper 156, I cut a brave long wattle, that I might dhrive the man-ather iv a thief, as she was, without bein' near her at all at all. 1843J. Ballantine Wee Raggit Laddie vi, Nae jockey's whup, nor drover's wattle Can frighten thee. 1846J. Keegan Leg. & Poems (1907) 395 An old man..tottered with the aid of a long iron-shod wattle which he carried in his withered hand, to the door of a snug-looking public house. 1856P. Kennedy Banks of Boro xli. (1867) 337 Pat's wattle descended on the upper horizontal line of Charley's thigh.
b. Comb.: wattle-boy Anglo-Irish (see quot.); wattle-race U.S., a Western form of ‘running the gauntlet’ (cf. gantlope).
1832Barrington Pers. Sk. III. xx. 280 His reverence..was instantly recognised by one of the wattle-boys, as the pikemen were then called. 1839Duncan in Congr. Globe Jan., App. 104/2 It would have been like the wattle races I have seen run in the West; he that ran the fastest received the fewest stripes.
II.
4. a. Australian. [Originally wattle-tree, from the use of the long pliant branches for making wattled fences or wattle-and-daub buildings.] The common name in Australia for indigenous trees of the genus Acacia. Also with defining word indicating the particular species, as black wattle, Acacia binervata and A. decurrens; broad-leaved, golden, green wattle, A. pycnantha; silver wattle, A. dealbata; but the application of these (and other similar terms) varies according to locality.
The bark of most of these trees is valuable for use in tanning, and they exude a gum resembling gum arabic. The golden yellow flowers are celebrated for their beauty and fragrance.
The acacias were included in the Linnean genus Mimosa. Hence in popular use mimosa was long current as a synonym of wattle, and is still sometimes so used, at least in England. See mimosa 1 b.
[c1810: see wattle-tree in d.] 1828P. Cunningham N.S. Wales I. 201 The acacias are the common wattles of this colony, their bark affording excellent tan. 1832J. Bischoff Van Diemen's Land II. 23 The black and silver wattle..are trees used in housework and furniture. 1859H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn xxiii, Fringed with black wattle and light⁓wood. Ibid. xliii, The sarsaparilla still hung in scant purple tufts on the golden wattle. 1863Technologist III. 5 The gum of the black wattle (Acacia mollissima, Willd.)..is very inferior to it [sc. that of the silver wattle]. 1888Candish Whispering Voices 45 And the wattle's yellow bloom Fills pure gales with rich perfume.
b. The flower of the wattle.
1867A. G. Middleton Earnest 132 The maidens were with golden wattles crowned.
c. = wattle-bark.
1893Advt. in Morris Austral Engl. s.v. Wattle-bark, Bark... Bundled Black Wattle, superior, {pstlg}5 to {pstlg}6 per ton;..chopped Black Wattle, {pstlg}5 to {pstlg}6. 5s. per ton. 1911Webster.
d. attrib. and Comb., as wattle-bark, wattle-bloom, wattle-blossom, wattle-bough, wattle-cluster, wattle-extract, wattle-flower, wattle-gloom, wattle-gum, wattle-scrub, wattle-tree; wattle-gold poet., the golden-coloured flowers of the wattle.
1828P. Cunningham N.S. Wales II. 106 The various *wattle-barks are used for tan. 1852C. Morfit Tanning & Currying 94 The leather tanned with wattle bark is of excellent quality, but highly coloured.
1890A. Sutherland Short Poems 84 Here, by the *wattle bloom silently laid, Life seems like a rapturous dream. 1896Kipling Seven Seas, Song Engl., England's Answ. 21 This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom.
1894A. Robertson Nuggets 62 The honey was coming from the sack as clear as amber and smelling of *wattle-blossom.
1855Dickens etc. Holly-tree Inn iv. 29/2 Breaking off a small *wattle-bough to whisk the flies from his face.
1852Mundy Antipodes (1857) 87 A dense scrub of burnt *wattle-bushes about the height of hop-poles.
1889Sherard Daughter of South 23 Past the plundered *wattle-cluster, Bathed no longer in the lustre, Of its golden rain.
1955Times 30 June 18/2 The price of South African *wattle extract remained the same during 1954 as it was during 1953 and 1952. 1969T. C. Thorstensen Pract. Leather Technol. ix. 141 The main source of wattle extract is the Acacia mollissima, or Black Wattle.
1900Daily News 9 Oct. 3/1 Something dainty, like the scent of the *wattle flower.
1867Goodrich Angel-Beckoned 9 Where the *wattle-glooms abound A little way below.
1870A. L. Gordon Bush Ballads Ded. 41 In the Spring, when the *wattle gold trembles, 'Twixt shadow and shine. 1883Keighley Who are You 54 My wealth has gone like the wattle gold You bound one day on my childish brow.
1863Technologist III. 4 *Wattle Gum, the gum of the Silver Wattle (Acacia dealbata, Lindl.). 1865H. Kingsley Hillyars & Burtons lii, ‘Well! if this don't bang wattle gum’, began Gerty.
1859― G. Hamlyn xxviii, They were passing through a narrow way in a *wattle scrub.
c1810in Trans. Linnean Soc. (1827) XV. 328 One of my specimens..I shot in a green *wattle-tree close to Government House. 1835in K. Cornwallis Panorama New World (1859) I. 402 We observed on a wattle tree..scratches or marks of figures, representing blacks in the act of fighting. 1890Melbourne Argus 10 June 5/2 The tender..for the right to strip the wattle trees growing on the upper portion of the You Yangs.
▪ II. wattle, n.2|ˈwɒt(ə)l|
Also 6 wattell(e, 7 waddle, wadle.
[Of obscure origin; possibly an altered form of wartle (which, however, does not appear so early in our quots.), due to assimilation to prec.
Usually believed to be identical with wattle n.1 On the ground of the reading ‘a watel ful of nobles’ in two closely related MSS. of Piers Plowman C (where other MSS. have walet) it has been assumed that from the primary sense of ‘something intertwined’ (see prec.) was developed the sense ‘basket’, and hence that of ‘wallet’, which would be a possible source of the senses below. (Cf. Shakes. ‘wallets of flesh’: see wallet n.2) This explanation is connected with the view that wallet is a metathesis of watel; but in all probability the reading watel in Piers Plowman is merely a scribal error for walet.]
1. A fleshy lobe (usually bright-coloured) pendent from the head or neck of certain birds, as the domestic fowl, the turkey, the guinea-fowl, etc.
1513in Glover's Hist. Derby (1829) I. App. 61 John Curson..bayryth a Cokatrice displayd, goulls with a hed in hys tayll, hys fette and hys wattelles assur. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iv. 158 Cockes..theyr wattelles oryent. Ibid. 166 b, Ginny Cocks, and Turky Cocks..haue no Coames, but only Wattles. 1611Cotgr. s.v. Barbe, La barbe d'vn coq, a Cockes rattles, or waddles. 1653H. More Antid. Ath. ii. xi. §2 Nor are his [sc. the cock's] Comb and his Wattles in vain, for they are an Ornament becoming his Martial Spirit. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Wattles,..Also the Gills of a Cock, or the red Flesh that hangs under a Turkey's Neck. 1725Bradley's Family Dict. s.v. Pigeon, The Leghorn is a Sort of Runt, only distinguished by a little Wattle over his Nostril. 1768Pennant Brit. Zool. I. 212 Their combs and wattles purple and yellow. 1781― Genera of Birds 9 On each side of the base of the bill, a red, thin fleshy membrane, or Wattle, of a round form. 1788J. White Jrnl. Voy. N.S. Wales (1790) 144 [The Wattled Bee-eater] Under the eye, on each side, is a kind of wattle, of an orange colour. 1812Crabbe Tales i. 380 From red to blue the [turkey's] pendent wattles turn. 1852J. Baily Fowls 38 The game cock is of bold carriage;..his face and wattle a beautiful red color. 1854Poultry Chron. II. 90 Cocks. Bright red comb, wattle and face. 1867Baker Nile Trib. iii. (1872) 45 The only species of guinea-fowl that I have seen in Africa is that with the blue comb and wattles.
b. transf. (Cf. gill n.1 3 b.)
1910‘Q’ (Quiller-Couch) Lady Good-for-Nothing i. xi, Once, it seemed to me, I detected the wattles of your worthy fellow-magistrate. He ought not to strain that neck; you should warn him of the danger.
c. slang. (See quots.) ? Obs. rare—0.
a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Wattles, Ears. 1848Sinks of Lond. 129 Wattles, the ears.
2. A flap of skin pendent from the throat or neck of some swine.
1570Levins Manip. 38/27 Y⊇ Wattle of a hog, neuus. 1611Cotgr., Goitrons, Waddles, or wattles; the two little and long excrescences, which hang, teat-like, at either side of the throat of some hogs. Ibid., Gouytrouz, Swines wadles. 1879J. Wrightson Swine in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 351/2 The ‘wattles’ or skinny appendages situated upon either side and below the cheek.
b. A similar excrescence on the jaws of sheep or goats. See also quot. 1725 (prob. a mis-use).
1725Bradley's Family Dict. s.v. Goat, The Buck or the He-goat ought to have a large Body, thick Legs [etc.],..his Ears should be long and hanging down, and his Chin cover'd with a long Beard, or his Jaws rather have two Wattles or Tufts like a Beard. 1842J. Bischoff Woollen Manuf. II. 330 Four-horned sheep are numerous in several parts, and a few have six horns; their forehead is convex, and there are wattles under the throat. 1859Jephson Brittany vi. 81 There were some brown goats, too, with white eyebrows, and wattles hanging down at each side of their necks.
3. A fleshy appendage hanging from the mouths of some fishes; a barb.
1655Walton Angler xviii. (1661) 231 This Loach is of the shape of the Eele: he had a beard or wattels like a Barbel. 1686Plot Staffordsh. 240 [A fish] having two small Cirri or wattles issuing out of the nose near the mouth. 1836Yarrell Brit. Fishes I. 321 The Barbel is said to have been so called from the barbs or wattles attached about its mouth. 1867F. Francis Angling i. (1880) 50 The barbs or wattles that depend from the sides of the mouth.
4. Comb.: (in sense 2) † wattle-faced, † wattle-jawed. Also wattle-bird, (a) = wattle-crow; (b) the wattled or warty-faced bee-eater of Australia, Anthochæra carunculata and A. inauris; wattle-crow, any bird of the genus Glaucopis (G. cinerea and G. wilsoni), inhabiting New Zealand; wattle honey-eater = wattle-bird (b).
1773Cook's 2nd Voy. i. v. (1777) I. 98 The *wattle-bird, so called because it has two wattles under its beak as large as those of a small dunghill cock. 1859–62Sir J. Richardson etc. Mus. Nat. Hist. I. 314 The Long-eared Wattle-bird (Anthochæra inauris). Ibid. 315 The Short-eared Wattle-bird (Anthochæra carunculata)... The Brush Wattle-bird (Anthochæra mellivora)... The Lunulated Wattle-bird (A. lunulata). 1871Bracken Behind Tomb 79 The wattle-bird sings in the leafy plantation.
1837Swainson Nat. Hist. Birds II. 265 Subfam. Glaucopinæ. *Wattle Crows.
c1600Middleton Mayor Quinb. iii. iii, I scorn thee, Thou *wattle-fac'd sing'd Pig.
1862Wood Illustr. Nat. Hist. II. 222 The Yellow *Wattle Honey-eater (Anthochæra inauris).
1630J. Taylor (Water P.) Gt. Eater Kent Wks. i. 147/2 Hee is *wattle-iawde, and his eyes are sunke inwarde.
▪ III. † ˈwattle, n.3 Orkney and Shetland. Obs.
Forms: 5–7 wattell, 6–7 wattill, vattill, 7–8 watle, 6, 9 Hist. wattle.
[app. a perversion of Norw. veitla (Aasen, Ross), dial. var. of veitsla:—ON. veizla entertainment, spec. ‘the reception or entertainment to be given to the Norse king..or his stewards’ (Vigf.); f. veita to grant, give, to make (a feast), to show (kindness, etc.): see wait v.2 For the sense of the n. cf. waiting vbl. n.2
In a Norwegian charter of 15 Apl. 1412 (Dipl. Norveg. II. ii. 466), containing a grant by King Erik of land in Shetland, the feudal dues payable by the property are enumerated as ‘skat, landskyld, ok wesel’, with which cf. the ‘skat, wattle, and dewties’ of quot. 1592 below.]
Originally, the obligation, imposed on landed proprietors in Orkney and Shetland, of giving entertainment to the Foud on his annual journey through the islands for the administration of justice; in later times, a tax for which this obligation was commuted.
1477Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 281/1 Cum universis liberatibus,..ad dictas terras..spectantibus, unacum le Wrak, Wattell, Waithe et Hasewaith. 1503in Peterkin Rentals Orkney i. (1820) 25 Summa de Wattill of the Ile j last in thre thridis viz cost flesche & fat guid. And the commonis ar all accordit to pay the tua in wattill & the thrid in flesche. 1587Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 468/1 Reddendo..105 doleras argenteas pro lie wattill. 1588Exchequer Rolls Scot. X. 391 Selling..1000 cunnyng skynnis, 167 packis vedmell, 105 doleris for vattill, 120 angel nobillis for toill. 1592in Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1610, 118/1 Payand..to me..the yeir maillis, skatt, wattell and dewties contenit in our rentall. 1595in Peterkin Rentals Orkney ii. (1820) 83 Thomas Sinclair pays yearly furth of his Wattle of the Bailyerie of Sanday 12 meils bear. 1605Shetland Rental in Jamieson Suppl. (1887) 270 Rentall of the wattill as it was in anno 1605... Ska, ij nychtis wattill. Trowoilie & Sandoill, ij nychtis wattill. 1610Rec. Earldom Orkney (S.H.S.) 185 His awin proper land and heretage haldin frielie of the king for payment of scat and wattell and of the teynd therof to the kirk. 1628in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. N.S. VII. 231 Easter Quarff, 1 nyghtis wattill. Summa [for Burray] 4 nyghtis wattill and 6 merkis. 1733T. Gifford Zetland Isl. v. (1879) 37 To grant charters to the heritors..holding few of the crown for payment of an annual reddendo, formerly paid, called the Scat and Watle. 1821Scott Pirate xviii, Is it not enough that we must pay scat and wattle, which were all the public dues under our old Norse government; but must they come over us with king's dues and customs besides? 1840New Statist. Acc. Shetland (1845) 63 The wattle was a tax imposed on every family paid in barley to the foud or bailie.
▪ IV. wattle, v.|ˈwɒt(ə)l|
Forms: 4 wat(t)ele-n, watle-n, 5 wattyll, 6 wattil, wadle, 6–7 watle, wattel, 7 wattell, 6– wattle.
[f. wattle n.1]
1. trans. To construct (a building, wall, fence, arbour) of rods, posts, or laths interlaced with twigs or flexible branches. Also rarely with up.
1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xix. 323 And there-with Grace bigan to make a good foundement, And watteled [v.rr. watelide, watled(e] it and walled it with his peynes and his passioun. 1552Huloet, Wattle a house, cratio, iui, ire, whyche is a maner not vsed but where thacked houses be. 1565Cooper Thesaurus, Concratitius..paries..walles wattled with roddes as they vse in the countrey. 1600Holland Livy xxvii. iii. 627 To build..cotages and sheds... These were most of them made of hurdles and bourds, some watteled and wound with reedes [L. alia arundine texta]. 1617Moryson Itin. iii. 74 For the meere barbarous Irish either sleepe under the canopy of heaven, or in cabbines watled, and covered with turfe. 1627in Sir. J. H. Ramsay Bamff Charters (1915) 212 Bindis..him.. to caber wattell and theik with thak..the hall biggit be him. 1707–21Mortimer Husb. I. 112 A Hedge wattled standing under a Bog that was five or six Foot above it. 1791W. Gilpin Forest Scenery II. 113 He fixes next on some spreading tree, round the bole of which he wattles a slight circular fence of the dimensions he wants. 1821Clare Vill. Minstrel II. 24 The arbour he once wattled up is broke. 1832H. Martineau Demerara i. 12 The walls were merely wattled and smeared with plaster. 1867C. H. Pearson Hist. Eng. I. 16 The villages were circles of huts hollowed out of the hills or heath, to save wall building, the sides wattled and the roofs thatched.
b. To construct (a sheepfold) with hurdles.
1789C. Smith Ethelinde IV. 170 The shepherd..contented himself with staring at them a moment, and then went on with wattling his fold. 1827Clare Sheph. Cal. 189 Shepherds have wattled pens about.
2. To interlace (boughs, twigs, osiers, etc.) so as to form wattle-work.
1486Nottingham Rec. III. 242 Osyars..to wattyll' betwix piles of þe same Brigges. 1563T. Hill Art Garden. (1593) 7 The Romans vsed to..fence their gardens with stakes and laths, set very thick in order, and with small rods watled in together. 1683Brit. Spec. 121 A Temple or Church..the Walls whereof were on all sides made of Rods, watled or interwoven. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 539 The sides and top of the House are filled up with Boughs coursely watled between the poles. 1793Trans. Soc. Arts XI. 296 Fixing stakes..and wattling straw-bands between them. 1805R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 110 Pl. xxxiii, The dead materials are wattled in between strong stakes. 1833Loudon Encycl. Archit. §889 The walls..are frames filled in with studwork, into which branches of furze are thickly wattled. 1855Dickens etc. Holly-tree Inn iv. 26/1 A building of boughs wattled on stakes, and dabbed over with mud. 1858Rawlinson tr. Herodotus iv. cxc. III. 169 The dwellings of these people are made of the stems of the asphodel, and of rushes, wattled together. 1871W. B. Lord & Baines Shifts Camp Life vi. 382 Rattans, osiers, twigs, reeds, or grass are then wattled in in the manner shown in the sketch. 1884Weekly Lond. Times 12 Sept. 18 A framework of oak beams, with mortise holes cut to receive cross beams, through which hazel and birch boughs have been closely wattled.
3. To bind together (posts, laths, etc.) with interlaced osiers, twigs, or flexible branches. Also with across.
1602Ld. Mountjoy Let. in Moryson Itin. ii. 213 Staked on both sides with pallisades watled. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 428 These people make but small low Houses. The sides..are made of small posts, watled with boughs. 1726Swift Gulliver iv. ii, We came to a long kind of building, make of timber stuck in the ground, and wattled across. 1775Johnson West. Isl., Anoch 76 The part in which we dined and slept was lined with turf and wattled with twigs, which kept the earth from falling. 1809A. Henry Trav. 294 The fence was..formed of strong stakes of birch-wood, wattled with smaller branches of the same. 1876Tennyson Harold v. i. 109, I have seen The trenches dug, the palisades uprear'd And wattled thick with ash and willow-wands. 1882Jefferies Bevis II. 268 He proposed to..extend a railing all round and wattle this with willows. 1886Stevenson Kidnapped xxiii, The trunks of several trees had been wattled across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind this barricade levelled up with earth.
4. To cover or surround with wattle-work. Also with about.
1545Elyot Dict., Cratio, to couer with grates, to wattil. 1577Harrison England iii. xii. 111 b in Holinshed, Our hiues are made commonly of Rye straw, and wadled about with bramble quarters. 1615Markham Country Content. i. 14 Which seats [for hounds] would bee either boorded, or watled with stakes and small wands on the sides to hold vp the earth from falling. 1629Hobbes Thucyd. ii. 122 They built a Frame of Timber, and watled it about on either side, to serue instead of Walles, to keepe the Earth from falling too much away.
5. To fold (sheep). dial.
1908Academy 27 June 920/2 This garden hears the sheep⁓bells of the flock That browses, wattled, on its further strand. |