- a sort of woven work made of sticks intertwined with twigs or branches, used for walls, fences, and roofs
- Brit., Dial.
- a stick, rod, twig, or wand
- a hurdle or framework made of sticks, rods, etc.
- [pl.] 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
- [often pl.] a fold or pouch of flesh hanging from the neck or lower part of the jaw
Origin of wattle
Middle English wattel from Old English watul, a hurdle, woven twigs from uncertain or unknown; perhaps Indo-European an unverified form wedh-, to knit, bind from base an unverified form (a)we- from source weave made of or roofed with wattle or wattles
transitive verb
-·tled, -·tling- 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
