wave

• enPR: wāv, IPA^(key): /weɪv/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: waive
• Rhymes: -eɪv

From Middle English waven, from Old English wafian (“to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder”), 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”), Icelandic váfa (“to fluctuate, waver, doubt”). See also waver.

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

1. (intransitive) To move back and forth repeatedly.

   The flag waved in the gentle breeze.

   • 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport:

     But the World Cup winning veteran's left boot was awry again, the attempt sliced horribly wide of the left upright, and the saltires were waving aloft again a moment later when a long pass in the England midfield was picked off to almost offer up a breakaway try.

2. (intransitive) To move one’s hand back and forth (generally above the head) 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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     Look, with what courteous action / It waves you to a more removed ground.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Alfred Tennyson

     She spoke, and bowing waved / Dismissal.

   I waved goodbye from across the room.

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea

6. (transitive) To produce waves to the hair.
   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

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

   Jones waves at strike one.

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

   The starter waved the flag to begin the race.

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.
    • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

      He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm.

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

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Thomas Browne to this entry?)

• wave off

• waver

• wave the white flag

The wave after a ferry (1)

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.

wave (plural waves)

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

   The wave traveled from the center of the lake before breaking on the shore.

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

   Gravity waves, while predicted by theory for decades, have been notoriously difficult to detect.

3. A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.

   Her hair had a nice wave to it.

   sine wave

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

   A wave of shoppers stampeded through the door when the store opened for its Christmas discount special.

   A wave of retirees began moving to the coastal area.

   A wave of emotion overcame her when she thought about her son who was killed in battle.

   The grief and anxiety came in waves for the affected families.

   • 2011 January 11, Jonathan Stevenson, “West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC‎:

     Foster had been left unsighted by Scott Dann's positioning at his post, but the goalkeeper was about to prove his worth to Birmingham by keeping them in the game with a series of stunning saves as West Ham produced waves after wave of attack in their bid to find a crucial second goal.

5. (video games, by extension) One of the successive swarms of enemies sent to attack the player in certain games.
   • 2011, Raffaele Cecco, Supercharged JavaScript Graphics: With HTML5 Canvas, JQuery, and More

     As the player eliminates each wave of 55 aliens, the next wave begins lower than the one previous.

6. A sideway movement of the hand(s).

   He dismissed her with a wave of the hand.

7. (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.

• (an undulation): und (obsolete, rare)
• (group activity): Mexican wave (chiefly Commonwealth)

See waive.

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

1. Obsolete spelling of waive

wave

1. Alternative form of waven