WAVE

wave

(noun) a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon; “a wave of settlers”; “troops advancing in waves”

wave

(noun) a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair

wave, waving, wafture

(noun) the act of signaling by a movement of the hand

wave, undulation

(noun) (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth

wave, moving ridge

(noun) one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)

wave

(noun) something that rises rapidly; “a wave of emotion swept over him”; “there was a sudden wave of buying before the market closed”; “a wave of conservatism in the country led by the hard right”

Wave

(noun) a member of the women’s reserve of the United States Navy; originally organized during World War II but now no longer a separate branch

wave

(noun) a persistent and widespread unusual weather condition (especially of unusual temperatures); “a heat wave”

wave, undulation

(noun) an undulating curve

wave

(verb) set waves in; “she asked the hairdresser to wave her hair”

beckon, wave

(verb) signal with the hands or nod; “She waved to her friends”; “He waved his hand hospitably”

curl, wave

(verb) twist or roll into coils or ringlets; “curl my hair, please”

brandish, flourish, wave

(verb) move or swing back and forth; “She waved her gun”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology 1

Verb

wave (third-person singular simple present waves, present participle waving, simple past and past participle waved)

(intransitive) To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.

(intransitive) To move one’s hand back and forth (generally above the head) in greeting or departure.

(transitive, metonymic) To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate.

(intransitive) To have an undulating or wavy form.

(transitive) To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.

(transitive) To produce waves to the hair.

(intransitive, baseball) To swing and miss at a pitch.

(transitive) To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.

(transitive, metonymic) To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.

(intransitive, obsolete) To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state.

(intransitive, ergative) To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.

Hyponyms

• wave off

Etymology 2

Noun

wave (plural waves)

A moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.

(poetic) The ocean.

(physics) A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.

A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.

Any of a number of species of moths in the geometrid subfamily Sterrhinae, which have wavy markings on the wings.

A loose back-and-forth movement, as of the hands.

(figuratively) A sudden unusually large amount of something that is temporarily experienced.

Synonym: rush

(video games, by extension) One of the successive swarms of enemies sent to attack the player in certain games.

(usually "the wave") A group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit.

Synonyms

• (an undulation): und (obsolete, rare)

• (group activity): Mexican wave (chiefly Commonwealth)

Hyponyms

• cosine wave

• electromagnetic wave

• Elliott wave

• episodic wave

• gamma wave

• gravitational wave

• gravity-inertia wave

• harmonic wave

• incident wave

• Kelvin wave

• light wave

• longitudinal wave

• longwave, long wave

• magnetic wave

• mechanical wave

• mediumwave, medium wave

• metachronal wave

• Mexican wave

• modulated wave

• new wave

• ocean wave

• plane wave

• radio wave

• rogue wave

• sea wave

• seismic wave

• shock wave

• shortwave, short wave

• sine wave

• sinusoidal wave

• sound wave

• standing wave

• transverse wave

• wind wave

Etymology 3

Verb

wave (third-person singular simple present waves, present participle waving, simple past and past participle waved)

Obsolete spelling of waive.

Noun

WAVE (plural WAVES)

(US, historical) A members of the WAVES; a member of the US Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve).

[H]e read the faded sticker on the crystal of the door, “A slip of the lip can sink a ship.” Below a WAVE held her finger to lips that had turned tan.

Source: Wiktionary

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Wave, v. t.

Definition: See Wave. Sir H. Wotton. Burke.

Wave, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Waved; p. pr. & vb. n. Waving.] Etym: [OE. waven, AS. wafian to waver, to hesitate, to wonder; akin to wæfre wavering, restless, MHG. wabern to be in motion, Icel. vafra to hover about; cf. Icel. vafa to vibrate. Cf. Waft, Waver.]

1. To play loosely; to move like a wave, one way and the other; to float; to flutter; to undulate. His purple robes waved careless to the winds. Trumbull. Where the flags of three nations has successively waved. Hawthorne.

2. To be moved to and fro as a signal. B. Jonson.

3. To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate. [Obs.] He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm. Shak.

Wave, v. t.

1. To move one way and the other; to brandish. "[Æneas] waved his fatal sword." Dryden.

2. To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form a surface to. Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea. Shak.

3. To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

4. To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground. Shak. She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal. Tennyson.

Wave, n. Etym: [From Wave, v.; not the same word as OE. wawe, waghe, a wave, which is akin to E. wag to move. Wave, v. i.]

1. An advancing ridge or swell on the surface of a liquid, as of the sea, resulting from the oscillatory motion of the particles composing it when disturbed by any force their position of rest; an undulation. The wave behind impels the wave before. Pope.

2. (Physics)

Definition: A vibration propagated from particle to particle through a body or elastic medium, as in the transmission of sound; an assemblage of vibrating molecules in all phases of a vibration, with no phase repeated; a wave of vibration; an undulation. See Undulation.

3. Water; a body of water. [Poetic] "Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave." Sir W. Scott. Build a ship to save thee from the flood, I 'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine. Chapman.

4. Unevenness; inequality of surface. Sir I. Newton.

5. A waving or undulating motion; a signal made with the hand, a flag, etc.

6. The undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered, or calendered, or on damask steel.

7. Fig.: A swelling or excitement of thought, feeling, or energy; a tide; as, waves of enthusiasm. Wave front (Physics), the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances.

– Wave length (Physics), the space, reckoned in the direction of propagation, occupied by a complete wave or undulation, as of light, sound, etc.; the distance from a point or phase in a wave to the nearest point at which the same phase occurs.

– Wave line (Shipbuilding), a line of a vessel's hull, shaped in accordance with the wave-line system.

– Wave-line system, Wave-line theory (Shipbuilding), a system or theory of designing the lines of a vessel, which takes into consideration the length and shape of a wave which travels at a certain speed.

– Wave loaf, a loaf for a wave offering. Lev. viii. 27.

– Wave moth (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of small geometrid moths belonging to Acidalia and allied genera; -- so called from the wavelike color markings on the wings.

– Wave offering, an offering made in the Jewish services by waving the object, as a loaf of bread, toward the four cardinal points. Num. xviii. 11.

– Wave of vibration (Physics), a wave which consists in, or is occasioned by, the production and transmission of a vibratory state from particle to particle through a body.

– Wave surface. (a) (Physics) A surface of simultaneous and equal displacement of the particles composing a wave of vibration. (b) (Geom.) A mathematical surface of the fourth order which, upon certain hypotheses, is the locus of a wave surface of light in the interior of crystals. It is used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction. See under Refraction.

– Wave theory. (Physics) See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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