waffle [L17th] Someone who waffles now talks on and on in a vague or trivial way, but in the 17th century to waffle was ‘to yap or yelp’, and then ‘to dither’. It came from the English dialect term waff ‘to yelp’ (the same word as woof [E19th], both imitating the sound), and seems to have been used mainly in northern England until the modern meaning developed at the start of the 20th century. Waffle [M18th] meaning ‘a small crisp batter cake’ is quite different: it comes from Dutch wafel, and before that Old French gaufre, the root of wafer [ME]. Gaufre also meant ‘honeycomb’, and this is probably the basic idea—the criss-cross indentations on a waffle or wafer look like a honeycomb (see also gopher).