Meanings
present singular third person gauffers · participle present gauffering · participle past gauffered · past gauffered
- transitiveTo plait, crimp, or flute
gauffered crape
2 more examples
High heels were conspicuous everywhere, but it was left to Italy to have the honour of popularising the most ridiculous fashion of the chopines or stilted clogs, which asserted themselves at different heights, mostly outrageous, beneath a covering of gauffered leather, a commodity which looks like the modern poker-work.
1906, Eliza Davis Aria, Costume: Fanciful, Historical, and Theatrical, Chapter 7Into the hollow cylinder a red-hot iron is pushed, which heats it; and the smooth outside of the latter is used, on which articles such as frills and plaited articles are drawn. Crimping and gauffering-machines are used for a kind of plaiting where much regularity is required.
1861, Isabella Beeton, chapter LXVIII, in The Book of Household Management; […], London: S[amuel] O[rchart] Beeton, […], →OCLCSynonyms: goffer
- historicaltransitiveartsTo decorate the edges of a text block with a heated iron.
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo plait, crimp, or flute
More synonyms by meaning
nounan iron used to press pleats and ridges
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchgaufrer“to figure cloth, velvet, and other stuffs”
- Englishgauffer
From French gaufrer (“to figure cloth, velvet, and other stuffs”), from gaufre (“honeycomb, waffle”); of Germanic origin. See waffle, wafer, and compare goffer, gopher (“an animal”).
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
gauffer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gauffer
“gauffer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gauffer. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gauffer,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gauffer.
Source: gauffer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.