Wattle v.

Forms: 4 wat(t)ele-n, watle-n, 5 wattyll, 6 wattil, wadle, 6–7 watle, wattel, 7 wattell, 6– wattle. [f. WATTLE sb.¹]

  1.  trans. To construct (a building, wall, fence, arbor) of rods, posts or laths interlaced with twigs or flexible branches. Also rarely with up.

1377.  Langl., 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.

1552.  Huloet, Wattle a house, cratio, iui, ire, whyche is a maner not vsed but where thacked houses be.

1565.  Cooper, Thesaurus, Concratitius … paries … walles wattled with roddes as they vse in the country.

1600.  Holland, 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].

1617.  Moryson, Itin., III. 74. For the meere barbarous Irish either sleepe under the canopy of heaven, or in cabbines watled, and covered with turfe.

1627.  in Sir J. H. Ramsay, Bamff Charters (1915), 212. Bindis … him … to caber wattell and theik with thak … the hall biggit be him.

1707–21.  Mortimer, Husb., I. 112. A Hedge wattled standing under a Bog that was five or six Foot above it.

1791.  W. 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.

1821.  Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 24. The arbour he once wattled up is broke.

1832.  Ht. Martineau, Demerara, i. 12. The walls were merely wattled and smeared with plaster.

1867.  C. 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.

1789.  Charlotte Smith, Ethelinde, IV. 170. The shepherd … contented himself with staring at them a moment, and then went on with wattling his fold.

1827.  Clare, Sheph. Cal., 189. Shepherds have wattled pens about.

  2.  To interlace (boughs, twigs, osiers, etc.) so as to form wattle-work.

1486.  Nottingham Rec., III. 242. Osyars … to wattyll’ betwix piles of þe same Brigges.

1563.  T. 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.

1683.  Brit. Spec., 121. A Temple or Church … the Walls whereof were on all sides made of Rods, watled or interwoven.

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. 539. The sides and top of the House are filled up with Boughs coursely watled between the poles.

1793.  Trans. Soc. Arts, XI. 296. Fixing stakes …. and wattling straw-bands between them.

1805.  R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 110, Pl. xxxiii. The dead materials are wattled in between strong stakes.

1833.  Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 889. The walls … are frames filled in with studwork, into which branches of furze are thickly wattled.

1855.  Dickens, etc., Holly-tree Inn, iv. 26/1. A building of boughs wattled on stakes, and dabbed over with mud.

1858.  Rawlinson, trans. Herodotus, IV. cxc. III. 169. The dwellings of these people are made of the stems of the asphodel, and of rushes, wattled together.

1871.  W. B. Lord & Baines, Shifts Camp Life, etc., vi. 382. Rattans, osiers, twigs, reeds, or grass, are then wattled in in the manner shown in the sketch.

1884.  Weekly 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.

1602.  Ld. Mountjoy, Lett., in Moryson, Itin., II. 213. Staked on both sides with pallisades watled.

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. 428. These people make but small low Houses. The sides … are made of small posts, watled with boughs.

1726.  Swift, Gulliver, IV. ii. We came to a long kind of building, made of timber stuck in the ground, and wattled across.

1775.  Johnson, 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.

1809.  A. Henry, Trav., 294. The fence was … formed of strong stakes of birch-wood, wattled with smaller branches of the same.

1876.  Tennyson, Harold, V. i. 109. I have seen The trenches dug, the palisades uprear’d And wattled thick with ash and willow-wands.

1882.  Jefferies, Bevis, II. 268. He proposed to fix uprights and extend a railing all round, and wattle this with willows.

1886.  Stevenson, 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.

1545.  Elyot, Dict., Cratio, to couer with grates, to wattil.

1577.  Harrison, England, III. xii. 111 b, in Holinshed. Our hiues are made commonly of Rye straw, and wadled about with bramble quarters.

1615.  Markham, Country Contentm., 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.

1629.  Hobbes, Thucyd., II. 122. They built a Frame of Timber, and watled it about on either side, to serue in stead of Walles, to keepe the Earth from falling too much away.

  5.  To fold (sheep). dial.

1908.  Pamela Tennant, in Academy, 27 June, 921/2.