Wafer

How to spell wafer

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wafer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wafer mean?

1. nounA very thin, crisp biscuit, often eaten with ice cream or cheese.
2. nounA thin disc of unleavened bread used in the Christian sacrament of communion.
3. nounA thin slice of semiconductor material on which microchips are fabricated.

Wafer in a sentence

• Each scoop of ice cream came with a crisp wafer on the side.

• The priest placed a wafer on each worshipper's tongue during the service.

• The factory polishes each silicon wafer before the circuits are etched.

• She layered chocolate between every wafer to make the dessert.

• A small box held the blessed wafer for the sick visit.

• A single defect can ruin an entire wafer of chips.

Where does wafer come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into Middle English in the 1300s from Anglo-Norman waufre and Old French gaufre, which meant a thin cake or, originally, a honeycomb. The French term was itself borrowed from a Germanic source, a word related to the old root that also gave us 'waffle', since both foods were baked between patterned irons that left a honeycomb-like impression. The earliest English wafers were thin, crisp, sweetened cakes, but the sense soon stretched to cover the thin discs of unleavened bread used in Christian communion and the small sealing discs of dried paste once used to close letters. By the twentieth century the same idea of an extremely thin, flat sheet was borrowed by industry for the thin slice of silicon on which microchips are built. The spelling stayed close to its French source, which is why the single 'f' and the 'a-e' spread across two syllables can trip writers who expect a doubled consonant as in 'waffle'.

How the word is built

• wafer (from Anglo-Norman waufre: a thin cake), single root, no affixes