wastel

From Middle English wastel, from Old French wastel, gastel (> French gâteau), from Late Latin wastellum, from Frankish *wastil, perhaps from Proto-Germanic *wistiz (“sustenance, food”), from Proto-Indo-European *wes- (“to be”). Cognate with Middle High German wastel (“a kind of bread”). Compare Old High German wist (“food”) and Old English wist (“food”). Doublet of gateau.

wastel (countable and uncountable, plural wastels)

1. (now historical) A kind of fine white bread or cake.
   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], OCLC 230694662:

     the simnel bread and wastel cakes, which were only used at the tables of the highest nobility

• wastel bread
• wastel cake

• Ewalts, awlets

From Old French wastel, gastel (> French gâteau), from Late Latin wastellum, from Frankish *wastil, perhaps from Proto-Germanic *wistiz (“sustenance, food”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes- (“to dwell, stay”). Cognate with Middle High German wastel (“a kind of bread”). Compare Old High German wist (“food”) and Old English wist (“food”).

wastel

1. A kind of fine white bread or cake.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Prologues”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], OCLC 230972125; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, OCLC 932884868:

     Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde / With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.

     Some small dogs she had, which she fed / With roasted meat, and milk, and wastel bread.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

• English: wastel