Middle Low German wagenschot (1389 in Schiller and Lübben), apparently < wagen carriage, wagon n. + schot (of uncertain meaning; compare bokenschot, modern Low German bökenschot, beechwood of superior quality). Compare 16th cent. Flemish waegheschot, waeghenschot (Kilian), West Flemish wageschot (De Bo), Dutch wagenschot, West Frisian wagenskot. The synonymous Flemish or Dutch wandschot (Kilian), which may be the source of some of the English forms, is either an etymologizing perversion of wagenschot or an independent formation on wand wall of a room. The English examples of the word are earlier than those given in the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch dicts., and the first element appears already in the earliest instances assimilated to the English wain n.1The etymology as above stated does not clearly account for the meaning, and there have been attempts to explain the first element differently. Kilian (1598) identifies it with Flemish waeghe wave, taking it to refer to the undulation in the grain of the wood. Some modern scholars regard it as an alteration of Middle Dutch weeg wall (= Old Frisian wâch, Old English wáh, wough n.1). These suggestions are however open to strong objection, and the probability is that the first element is really wagen, though the original meaning of the compound remains for the present obscure.
A superior quality of foreign oak imported from Russia, Germany, and Holland, chiefly used for fine panel-work; logs or planks of this oak; oak boarding for panel-work. Now only technical. (OED)
"George Eliot's own parlor - at the Priory, the London home that she shared with Lewes for fifteen years - is re-created at the Nuneaton museum. It has wainscoting, dark-green wallpaper, and a table draped in lace, set with an oil lamp and a tea cake."
- Rebecca Mead, "Middlemarch and Me: What George Eliot teaches us", February 14 & 21, 2011, The New Yorker
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