The term used by German-speaking immigrants to America in the 18th and 19th centuries for half-timbered construction, i.e., the medieval system of braced timber framing of a house in which the space between the structural timbers is usually filled with brick or filled with a nogging consisting of clay mixed with chopped straw to act as a binder; then the exterior sides of the walls were coated with plaster (although the timbers were often left exposed).