vbl. sb. Also 4–7 wattelyng(e, -ing, 4–6 watlyng(e, -ing(e, 6 wadling. [f. WATTLE v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb WATTLE.
1573–80. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 83. To arbor begun, and quick setted about, no poling nor wadling till set be far out.
1633. T. James, Voy., 60. Our second house was … made for the watteling much after the same manner.
1916. Vernon Lee, in Contemp. Rev., July, 96. Various kinds of manufacture, such as plaiting, braiding, weaving, and wattling, all of which bring into existence very definite rudiments of pattern.
2. concr. a. An assemblage of rods or laths interlaced with branches, twigs, osiers, or the like, serving as the material of a wattled wall, partition, fence, etc., or as the framework of a ‘wattle-and-daub’ building. Also, in generalized sense, wattle as a structural material.
1336. Cal. Docum. Scot. (1887), III. 349. Item pro amputacione xxiiij carcatarum virgarum pro ‘wattelyngs,’ et pro cariagio earundem de bosco usque castrum. Ibid., 351. [similarly but] ‘watlyngs’.
1431–40. in Glasscock, Rec. St. Michael’s, Bp.’s Stortford (1882), 8. Et in virgis emptis pro watlyng sprendelles et ligaminibus, xd. ob.
c. 1468. in Archæologia (1846), XXXI. 336. On every tarage a tree of gold…. The tarage before reherssid, wateled wt gold, wthin the wattelinge abowt the said tre, and every of them fylled wt meatis divers.
1545. Elyot, Dict., Crates, grates of yron or wood. They be also the watling of a wall or house klayd or thatched.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, V. iii. 131. Watlings, gabbions, and all other things needfull, at batteries, and besieging.
1658. in J. Campbell, Balmerino (1899), 410. Ane new cupill, cabers, watlings, door-cheeks, half doore.
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. II. 115. The side Walls are Stud or Watling, plaister’d on the inside.
1763. Hume, Hist. Eng., xxxvii. (1770), IV. 497. The houses [c. 1560] were nothing but watling, plastered over with clay.
1837. J. E. Murray, Summer in Pyrenees, I. 63. A wattling of willow boughs, about eight feet square, is thatched with straw.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 149. Fig. 66 shows the handle and rim of what is called the Scotch basket…. Fig. 67 shows the same skeleton, with … the wattling or woven work commenced.
1909. Stacpoole, Pools of Silence, xxx. Adams had swung the man aloft and dashed him against the wall with such force, that the wattling gave way and the plaster fell in flakes.
† transf. 1567. Golding, Ovid’s Met., XII. (1593), 286. He threw an ashen dart Which brake the watling of his ribs [L. laterum cratem].
b. Boughs and twigs for use in wattle-work.
1622. F. Markham, Bk. War, III. v. 98. To hew downe boughes and young watlings to make Cabins.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xiv. (Roxb.), 19/2. Thatchers Termes…. Watlings iusted of Laths.
1763. ‘Theophilus Insulanus,’ Second Sight, 26. Going … to cut wattling for creels.
1809. trans. Molina’s Hist. Chili, I. 128. They [husbandmen] employ it [a vine] both in making large baskets, and as wattling for their hedges.
1831. Jane Porter, Sir E. Seaward’s Narr., I. x. 295. To cut the stakes and watlings for the stoccado.
3. Comb.
14[?]. Master of Game, etc. (MS. Douce 335), fol. 73. Ony smal wode, that is to wete, blatrons, sparres, watlyngroddes, or ony other smal wode.
