noun
- a sort of woven work made of sticks intertwined with twigs or branches, used for walls, fences, and roofs
- Brit., Dialectal
- a stick, rod, twig, or wand
- a hurdle or framework made of sticks, rods, etc.
- rods or poles used as the support of a thatched roof
- Austral. any of various acacias: the flexible branches were much used by early settlers for making wattles
- a fleshy, wrinkled, often brightly colored piece of skin which hangs from the chin or throat of certain birds, as the turkey, or of some lizards
- a barbel of a fish
- a fold or pouch of flesh hanging from the neck or lower part of the jaw
Origin:
ME wattel < OE watul, a hurdle, woven twigs < ? IE *wedh-, to knit, bind < base *(a)we- > weave
adjective
made of or roofed with wattle or wattles
transitive verb wattled, wattling
- to twist or intertwine (sticks, twigs, branches, etc.) so as to form an interwoven structure or fabric
- to construct (a fence) by intertwining sticks or twigs
- to build of, or roof, fence, etc. with, wattle