English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From waffle +‎ -y.

Adjective edit

waffley (comparative more waffley, superlative most waffley)

  1. Resembling or characteristic of waffles.
    • 1966 September 20, “Sandwich Idea”, in Lincoln Evening Journal and Nebraska State Journal, 99th year, number 225, Lincoln, Neb., page 10:
      Here’s a “waffley” good version of the popular bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Prepare prebaked froz­en waffles in toaster or oven according to package direc­tions. Spread each with mayonnaise. Top each waf­fle section with lettuce, a tomato slice and cooked ba­con strips.
    • 1971 March, General Electric, “Now that you know how to iron, what about…”, in Mademoiselle, New York, N.Y.: The Condé Nast Publications Inc.:
      Grilled sandwiches. Blueberry [p]ancakes. Sausages and eggs. Turn [t]hem out like you’ve been cook[i]ng for years. In a General Electric grill and waffle [b]aker. The sections reverse [f]rom a waffley surface to a [f]lat one.
    • 1997, Mia Farrow, What Falls Away: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Nan A. Talese, →ISBN, page 71:
      A permanent fixture in that same pocket was a billfold or wallet m the final stages of disintegration. Its covering was a waffley, metal-like substance, gold and silver on reverse sides, that was peeling to bits.
    • 2000, Nicolyn Rajala, Some Like It Hot: The Sauna, Its Lore and Stories, St. Cloud, Minn.: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., published 2008, →ISBN, page 29:
      The bra top, which had what were called “molded plastic cups,” had shriveled and shrunk to a very small size. It left a waffley emaciated look across my entire top.
    • 2012, Christa Parrish, chapter 6, in The Air We Breathe, Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, →ISBN, page 61:
      He’d given her a cushion to sleep on, and a waffley baby’s blanket, yellow with a washed-out Cookie Monster appliquéd in one corner.
    • 2013, Richard Cahill, “[Taking Care of Business] Waffle House of Pain”, in It’s Girl Scout Cookie Time for Lesbians and Abortionists, Rockford, Ill.: Sweatshoppe Publications, →ISBN, page 104:
      The ancient Greeks made waffles? “Tons of ‘em. Ate ‘em by the plateful while they were braining up to invent Western civilization. Aristotle, Plato, Demosthenes, Bucephalus…all of them could wreak havoc on a stack of waffley goodness before you could say “I think, therefore I want more syrup.”
    • 2013, C.L. Wilson [pseudonym; Cheryl Wilson], “Upon a Midnight”, in One Enchanted Season: A Collection of Magical Holiday Romance, →ISBN, page 42:
      Katrina spread butter and syrup with liberal abandon, then forked several squares of butter- and maple-syrup-laden waffley goodness into her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss.
    • 2013, Victoria J. Hyla, Running in the Mists (Hearts Drawn Wyld Trilogy; 2), Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 300:
      After a moment of comfortable silence, with Ben tenderly rubbing his thumb gently over the back of her hand, he asked, “So what do you want to do now that you’re all stuffed full of waffley goodness?”
    • 2013 November 22, “Listings”, in The Austin Chronicle, volume 33, number 13, Austin, Tex.: The Austin Chronicle Corporation, →ISSN, page 66, column 4:
      Grab a seat for some top-notch extemporaneous shenanigans of all flavors – A Bedtime Gorey, Available Cupholders, Get Up, Squirrel Buddies, Known Wizards, The Frank Mills, All-Star Maestro, and many more – while munching on plate after plate of golden waffley goodness.
    • 2017, A.R. Barley, chapter 22, in On Duty (Smoke & Bullets), Toronto, Ont.: Carina Press, Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN:
      The first set of waffles was done. He put down his coffee and popped open the heavy iron griddle on the stove. Waffley goodness. Crisp golden circles with square indentations and a hint of darker color around the outside.
    • 20172020, Laura Greenwood, Skye MacKinnon, Seven Wardens: The Complete Collection, Peryton Press:
      “We were rudely interrupted by an earthquake,” Macey mumbled. The world really had it out for her. Every time she got close to eating some delicious waffley goodness, fate cruelly snatched that chance away.
    • 2019, Emilie Aries, Bossed Up: A Grown Woman’s Guide to Getting Your Sh*t Together, New York, N.Y.: PublicAffairs, →ISBN:
      When I was four years old, I woke my dad up with a simple but dead-serious request: waffles, please! I have been a Leslie Knope–level waffle fanatic since I knew what they were called, and, while Mom was putting in a twelve-hour shift at the hospital that Saturday morning, my hankering for waffley goodness was my wake-up call (and consequently, my dad’s too).
  2. Alternative form of waffly.
    • 1984, Status of the Air Traffic Control System (98-83): Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First and Second Sessions, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 1362:
      Mr. Crouse. Well, Mr. Chairman, I feel that any intelligent and reasonable man would have to answer that question in the affirmative. Mr. Levitas. I would think so, too, but I got sort of a waffley answer earlier today. So I was trying to ask it again.
    • 1985, Sue Garnett, The Ponies of Swallowdale Farm, Basingstoke, Hants: Pickering Paperbacks, →ISBN, page 113:
      “It is marvellous if someone loves you for just yourself. The trouble is, nobody seems to love me anything like that . . .” / Cassie’s father said quietly, “Nonsense, my dear, we are always loved by God, not in a waffley, airy-fairy sort of way but in a very down-to-earth fashion. It’s accepting that love which most people find hard, just as I suspect that you find it hard accepting your father’s love—or recognising it!”
    • 1989, Carlos Vásquez, quoting John A. FitzRandolph, Oral History Interview with John A. FitzRandolph (California State Archives, State Government Oral History Program), Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California, Los Angeles, page 43:
      Well, if you remember the 1960 [Democratic national] convention, apparently, he waffled or appeared to be a "waffley" kind of governor.
    • 1992 June, Ed[itor], “Letters”, in Your Sinclair, number 78, page 23, column 3:
      We write short concise reviews, because there’s nothing more tedious than a waffley piece of writing which takes twenty minutes to get to its point, especially when most people only look at the final verdict anyway.
    • 1998 August 3, Peter Riddell, “Prisoners of conscience”, in The Times, number 66,270, London, page 18, column 5:
      These differences meant that meetings of the Cabinet’s welfare committee have been unproductive, with a brooding Mr Field and a waffley and increasingly prickly Ms Harman.
    • 2001, Noel Entwistle, Velda McCune, Paul Walker, quoting a student, “Conceptions, Styles, and Approaches Within Higher Education: Analytical Abstractions and Everyday Experience”, in Robert J. Sternberg, Li-fang Zhang, editors, Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles, Mahwah, N.J., London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, →ISBN, page 120:
      I used to be a bit of a culprit for a waffley essay, that I didn’t actually know that much about what I was writing,. . .
    • 2018, Suzanne Gossett, “When is a Missing Stage Direction Missing?”, in Sarah Dustagheer, Gillian Woods, editors, Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre, London: The Arden Shakespeare, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, published 2019, →ISBN, page 159:
      The Norton 3 has a descriptive ‘Performance Comment’ in the digital edition and a waffley summary in the print version, ‘It is not clear from Shakespeare’s text how Isabella responds to the Duke’s proposal of marriage’. Is this equity, or cowardice?