Word.ws English Dictionary

wafery

wafery noun: a kitchen or building in which wafers and other pastries are prepared; the department of the royal household responsible for the preparation of wafers.

Noun

wafery (uncountable)

  1. (historical, obsolete) A kitchen or building in which wafers and other pastries are prepared; the department of the royal household responsible for the preparation of wafers.
    • One secundary clerke in this office of the greate spycery, sufficiaunt to resceive and trulye to keepe the Kinge’s stuffe of this office; and to wryte the dayly bookes of the delyveraunces thereof, and of all the other three offices, as it shall require; and he to awnswere to everye parcell of them...1474, Ordinances for the Government of Prince Edward, Son of King Edward IV in A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household Made in Divers Reigns, London...
    • Item the xi daye paied to Robert a lee yoman of the wafery for carying of the kinge nette for one hole yere ended xvi daye of Aprill laste […]1531, Nicholas Harris Nicolas, editor, The Privy Purse Expences of King Henry the Eighth, London: William Pickering, published 1827, page 139

Adjective

wafery (comparative more wafery, superlative most wafery)

  1. Like a wafer (especially, thin, brittle, light).
    • It is, however, much more dangerous to descend than to ascend a rapid; for it is then almost impossible to stop a canoe, when under full headway, and if you happen to strike a rock, you will find your wafery canoe no better than a sieve.1847, Charles Lanman, chapter 24, in A Summer in the Wilderness; Embracing a Canoe Voyage up the Mississippi and around Lake Superior, New York: D. Appleton, page 145
    • […] enter Mrs. Raikes […] leading by the hand a little boy in a sailor suit, cap in hand, a thin, wafery-looking boy, tall for seven years old, but white and wan, with big, dark-grey eyes, restless and shifty, alarmed like a wild thing afraid of the hunters.1900, Annie French Hector (as “Mrs. Alexander”), The Step-Mother, Philadelphia: Lippincott, Chapter 4, p. 65
  2. Sliced very thinly. (of bread)
    • This was none of your stand-up, wafery, bread and butter teas, but a thorough-going, sit-down supper […]1864, Louisa M. Alcott, Boston: Loring, Chapter 5, p. 94
    • I am greatly afraid they will not give you anything substantial here; nothing but a cup of tea and a biscuit or wafery slice of bread.1888, Richard Dowling, chapter 14, in Miracle Gold, Toronto: William Bryce, page 125

wafery meaning in Urdu

wafery in Urdu

کاغذی

Examples of wafery in a sentence

  • It was not till comparatively recent times that the wafery, a special department of the royal kitchen, where the confectionery and pastry were prepared, was discontinued.1886, W. Carew Hazlitt, “Meals”, in Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine, London: Elliot Stock, page 244:
  • I had one further mission, to investigate the famous Moroccan pastilla—a parcel of wafery pastry filled with an exotic concoction of meat (classically pigeon), almonds, spices, sugar and eggs.2002 December 8, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, “Confessions of a kitchen tart”, in The Guardian:

Forms of wafery

comparativemore wafery
superlativemost wafery

Origin of wafery

From Middle English waaffery, probably from wafre + -ie (equivalent to wafer + -y). Compare Medieval Latin wafria, French wafrie.

From wafer + -y.

Questions about wafery

What does wafery mean?
Wafery means a kitchen or building in which wafers and other pastries are prepared; the department of the royal household responsible for the preparation of wafers.
What is wafery in Urdu?
Wafery in Urdu is کاغذی. See Wafery meaning in Urdu.
How do you use wafery in a sentence?
It was not till comparatively recent times that the wafery, a special department of the royal kitchen, where the confectionery and pastry were prepared, was discontinued.
What part of speech is wafery?
Wafery can be a noun or an adjective.

Words near wafery in the dictionary

  1. waferish
  2. waferless
  3. waferlike
  4. wafers
  5. waferscale
  6. wafery
  7. waff
  8. waffed
  9. Waffen-SS
  10. waffing
  11. waffle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wafery (page history and authors); wafery (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “wafery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wafery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.