waffled

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of waffle.

   The senator waffled when reporters pressed her on the tax plan.

   They had waffled so long that the chance finally slipped away.

   Note

   The particle "on" usually signals the rambling meaning: he waffled on for an hour, they had waffled on about nothing. Without it, the evasive and dithering meanings are just as possible, and only context decides between them. Nearly every use is intransitive, so a passive is unusual. The slang meaning "smash" is the exception, because it lets something be waffled.

   He waffled on about his holiday until the train arrived.

   By the time the chair finished, she had waffled on for twenty minutes.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having a pattern of intersecting creases resembling the grid on a waffle.

   Like the grid of little hollows pressed into the metal plates of a waffle iron.

   The waffled fabric trapped warmth in its tiny pockets of air.

   His forehead was deeply waffled with worry lines after the long shift.

   Similarcreased, furrowed, lined, honeycombed

   Oppositesmooth

   Note

   Named for the breakfast grid, not for talk: the noun waffle plus -ed. That separates it from the past tense of the verb, which describes dithering or rambling. It covers surfaces of every kind: waffled cotton, the iron skin of the US "pineapple" grenade, a catering truck's stainless steel, even skin pressed against a metal chair. It works before a noun (waffled cotton) or after a verb with "with" (waffled with creases).

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