Waffle is the 'speak vaguely' sense is from waff, an imitative word meaning to yelp or bark, plus the frequentative -le; the food sense is unrelated, from Dutch wafel. In current use it is a verb and noun meaning "to speak or write vaguely and at length, or to vacillate indecisively". That sense is explained by the older material without requiring a speculative semantic step: the inherited or borrowed base supplies the field of meaning, while the English formation fixes its modern role. The surface form is compositional: its joined elements remain visible in the modern word. A frequentative element in the history points to repeated, habitual, or intensified action. A central historical form is Middle English waff. Derived forms include waffler, waffling, and waffly. The word's history is thus visible in its construction: the components remain interpretable even after the whole expression has settled into a conventional English meaning.