wave

English Online Dictionary. What means wave‎? What does wave mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: wāv, IPA^(key): /weɪv/
• Homophone: waive
• Rhymes: -eɪv

Etymology 1

From Middle English waven, from Old English wafian (“to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder”), from Proto-West Germanic *wabōn, from Proto-Germanic *wabōną, *wabjaną (“to wander, sway”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to move to and from, wander”).

Cognate with Middle High German waben (“to wave”), German wabern (“to waft”), Icelandic váfa (“to fluctuate, waver, doubt”). See also waver.

Verb

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

1. (intransitive) To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.
2. (intransitive) To move one’s hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.
3. (transitive, metonymically) 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.
4. (intransitive) To have an undulating or wavy form.
5. (transitive) To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.
6. (transitive) To produce waves to the hair.
7. (intransitive, baseball) To swing and miss at a pitch.

8. (transitive) To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.
9. (transitive, metonymically) To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.
10. (intransitive, obsolete) To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state.
11. (intransitive, ergative) To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.

Hyponyms

• wave off

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English *wave, partially from waven (“to fluctuate, wave”) (see above) and partially from Middle English wawe, waghe (“wave”), from Old English wǣg (“a wave, billow, motion, water, flood, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *wēgaz (“motion, storm, wave”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to drag, carry”). Cognate with North Frisian weage (“wave, flood, sea”), German Woge (“wave”), French vague (“wave”) (from Germanic), Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌲𐍃 (wēgs, “a wave”). See also waw.

Noun

wave (plural waves)

1. A moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.
2. (poetic) The ocean.
   • 1895, Fiona Macleod (William Sharp), The Sin-Eater and Other Tales

     […] your father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and his sister Anna—one and all, they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown mould.
3. (physics) A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.

4. A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.

5. Any of a number of species of moths in the geometrid subfamily Sterrhinae, which have wavy markings on the wings.
6. A loose back-and-forth movement, as of the hands.

7. (figurative) A sudden, but temporary, uptick in something.

   Synonym: rush
8. (figurative) A movement or trend in popular culture.

   New Wave

   Korean Wave

9. (video games, by extension) One of the successive swarms of enemies sent to attack the player in certain games.
10. (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

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

1. To generate a wave.

References

• “wave”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “wave”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Etymology 3

See waive.

Verb

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

1. Obsolete spelling of waive.

Middle English

Verb

wave

1. Alternative form of waven

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English waven (“to move back and forth; to wave”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /weːv/, (northern Scots) /wɑːv/

Verb

wave (third-person singular simple present waves, present participle wavin, simple past wavet, past participle wavet)

1. to wave, to move back and forth
2. to beckon, to signal by waving