Illustrated Architecture Dictionary

Wainscot(ing, ting)
wayne scot

An area of wooden paneling on the lower part of the walls of a room.

From the early Dutch/German meaning - literally - cut down/prepared/handled timber rather than standing/growing timber

This term originally seems to have implied rough planks of oak timber, and subsequently to have been given to wooden paneling

Often topped by a chair rail.

Very extensively employed during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I, and for a long period afterwards. The name has long- ceased to be confined to oak paneling

In Colonial America, the term referred to the sheathing applied over an entire interior wall surface in either a horizontal or vertical orientation.

American farmhouse wainscots:

• Plank (esp. popular in Greek Revival buildings)
• Board
• Victorian beadboard (paneling that is covered in a series of distinctive grooves; classically, it is installed so that the grooves run vertically, creating a striped or paneled effect)
• Cottage beadboard
• Paneled  (esp. popular in Greek Revival buildings)
• Battened

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Examples from Buffalo architecture:

• Illustration above: Harlow C. Curtiss House / International Institute  Paneled
  
  
• 121 Chapin Parkway  Paneled
  
  
• 232 Crescent Avenue  Paneled
  
  
• Charles F. Sternberg House / The Mansion on Delaware Avenue  Paneled
  
  
• Engine #15 Fire Station  Beadboard
  
  
• Robert B. Adam House  Paneled
  
  
• Saturn Club  Paneled
  
  
• 305 Elmwood Avenue  Paneled
  
  
• North Park Theatre

Other examples:

• Fontainebleau Palace, France  Paneled