wattle
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈwɑːtəl/
- Australian
:
acacia
- But Ylara, with its single muddy street and clay and wattle huts, had been home.
Examples
-
The colors, as strange as they sound, were popular for a time, blending well with the surrounding gum trees and wattle.
Fiction book (2001) -
But today we're gotta clear more wattle To make room for planting.
-
Between themselves and the river, there were three wattle cabins with smoke drooping down from the heather and childish voices disputing inside.
Fiction book (2001) -
At the end of the narrow path is a clearing, with some mauger dogs, a packed red-dirt yard, and a wattle house set on cement blocks.
Fiction book (1996) -
They walked on through the forest of black wattle, their boots crunching against a thin carpet of tiny fallen leaves and seed pods.
Fiction book (1995) -
The general success of eucalypts and wattles in seasonally dry areas from East Cape to Wairarapa stems from this principle.
Academic text (1991) -
One of these, issued in 1953 at the Rhodes Centenary, contrasts African wattle-and-daub houses with a superimposed glowing city (Southern Rhodesia Scott 76).
Academic text (2005) -
The plants in her backyard gradually changed from roses to wattle, from watercress to warratars, from an English to an Australian sensibility, the ground filling itself with plants locals called "natives," until my grandparents, late one May, lost their house to the bank, the two of them retreating to a two-bedroom unit.
Fiction book (2001) -
The builders used wattle to create sturdy walls for the new shelters.
-
In the village, many homes were constructed with mud and wattle materials.
Synonyms
A tree that stays green with silvery bark and bright yellow flower clusters
An evergreen tree with pale shiny bark and yellow flowers
An Australian tree whose bark is used to tan leather
A small Australian tree with bright yellow, fragrant flowers often grown in gardens
A small Australian tree with clusters of bright yellow fragrant flowers often grown in gardens
Compounds
- Australian
A small Australian tree with bright yellow, fragrant flowers often grown in gardens
A thorny tropical shrub or small tree with sweet yellow flowers used in perfume
Surface Forms
Etymology
Wattle for certain Australian trees comes from the fact people used their thin branches to make wattle fences, so the trees themselves became known as 'wattle'. So these acacia trees are called wattle because their branches were used to build wattles.