Waddings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Material used for filling or padding to provide insulation or comfort
2. The act of stuffing or padding to fill space, often in textiles or upholstery
3. Layers of soft material employed to cushion or support objects in various applications

Etymology: "Waddings" is the plural of "wadding," a noun for soft material used for padding, stuffing, or packing. The base word "wad" goes back to Middle English, where it meant a small mass or bundle of something soft, such as straw or cloth pressed together. The word for the material itself is built by adding the suffix "-ing," which in English forms nouns meaning a substance or collection, so "wadding" is literally "a collection of wads." The suffix has a long ancestry. It descends from an old Germanic ending that appears in Old English as "-ung" and in Middle English as "-ynge," the same ending that shows up in words like "clothing" and "bedding." Over the centuries the form settled into the modern "-ing" we see today. Because "wadding" is a plain formation from an existing word rather than an import, its history is largely the story of the English words it was built from.

Synonyms: padding, stuffing, filler