wave
/weɪv
/verb
1 [no object] Move one’s hand to and fro in greeting or as a signal: he waved to me from the train...
- I saw her mom's face looking from the window and I waved, but she disappeared behind the curtain.
- I waved out the window to my friends, dreading the conversation I was going to have with my parents when I got home.
- His eyes caught sight of Henry standing behind the window, and he waved cheerfully at him as well.
Synonyms
gesture, gesticulate, signal, sign, beckon, indicate, motion, nod, bid
1.1 [with object] Move (one’s hand or arm, or something held in one’s hand) to and fro: he waved a sheaf of papers in the air...
- Chad smiled and waved his hand, shaking his head.
- As you sing the song the next time, you wave your left hand in time with the music.
- They have no use for the dignified thumb sign, but wave their hands recklessly in an attempt to attract the rider and somehow get him to stop.
Synonyms
move to and fro, move up and down, wag, waggle;
swing, shake, swish, sweep, swipe, brandish, flourish, flaunt, wield, flick, flutter
1.2 [with object] Convey (a greeting or other message) by waving one’s hand or something held in it: we waved our farewells [with two objects]: she waved him goodbye...
- As he passed, merchants and shoppers smiled and waved their greetings.
- There are ready smiles from residents who wave their greetings as we eventually head off the road and towards a small clutch of humble wooden dwellings.
- I waved greetings in the general direction of the blokes, and smiled at the girls.
1.3 [with object and adverbial of direction] Instruct (someone) to move in a particular direction by moving one’s hand: he waved her back...
- Along the way all the commissars move over and wave us by.
- One of the nearby guards stepped forward with his weapon brandished, but she waved him back.
- Police were running from the scene and waving people away.
2 [no object] Move to and fro with a swaying motion while remaining fixed to one point: the flag waved in the wind...
- Jamie lifted his head and looked at the green tent as it flapped and waved in the wind and rain.
- You could barely see the folk for the flags waving.
- And there's American flags waving in the background, and plenty of 'em.
Synonyms
ripple, flutter, undulate, stir, flap, sway, swing, waft, shake, quiver, oscillate, move;
blow
3 [with object] Style (hair) so that it curls slightly: her hair had been carefully waved for the evening...
- For the model above the hair was waved with a stacked perm at the back of the neck to get volume up to the occipital bone, and layered and textured through the front.
- She wore, black strappy high heeled sandals and her long dark hair was waved to perfection.
- He was in his forties, she guessed, with thick, dark, waved hair and big baby-blue eyes.
3.1 [no object] (Of hair) grow with a slight curl: (as adjective waving) thick, waving grey hair sprouted back from his forehead...
- Her red hair waved in short curls around the small face and Lully's baby fat made her features look even more human.
- Most of my hair was waving down my shoulders in soft waves, shining with the golden sheer cloth hanging all around.
- Her reddish-golden hair was waving around past her shoulders, and shining as usual.
Synonyms
curl, kink, coil, undulate;
crimp, frizz, frizzle
noun
1A long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore: he was swept out to sea by a freak wave...
- He had anticipated this move though for as soon as she broke the surface a wave of water hit her.
- The sound of the waves breaking on the shore is a fine way to fall asleep.
- While the guys attempted to body surf the waves, the girls laid out on the sand to tan.
Synonyms
breaker, billow, roller, comber, ripple, white horse, white cap;
(waves) swell, surf, froth;
Australian/New Zealand bombora
informal boomer
North American informal kahuna
1.1A ridge of water between two depressions in open water: gulls and cormorants bobbed on the waves...
- The wooden hulls of the canoes would have bobbed on the desert of water, lapped by waves repeating and repeating the vastness of the earth in soft undulations.
- Occasionally, we would jump in to the salt water and bob about in the waves to cool off.
- After a short but thorough lesson on handling our craft we were away, bobbing through the gentle waves.
1.2A shape regarded as resembling a breaking wave: a wave of treetops stretched to the horizon...
- It stretches in concrete waves over the horizon and Kaliningrad is its greatest monumental evocation.
- At the mine, a path leads into cloudforest, and along the way I can see over waves of razor-sharp ridges into South America.
- The plains spread out below beyond waves of barren ridges and Junagadh, too, was clearly visible.
1.3 (the waves) literary The sea.They were also a maritime power and ruled the waves around the western shores for a thousand years.
2A sudden occurrence of or increase in a phenomenon, feeling, or emotion: a wave of strikes had paralysed the government fear came over me in waves...
- So will one the features of this new age - in addition to the welcome growth in sexual openness - be a terrible wave of increased sexual assaults?
- Momentum was increased by a fresh wave of Russian pogroms in 1903.
- The United States also pledged $350m to help tsunami victims, a tenfold increase over its first wave of aid.
Synonyms
flow, rush, surge, flood, stream, swell, tide, deluge, torrent, spate, billow
surge, rush, ripple, spasm, thrill, frisson, shiver, tingle, stab, dart;
upsurge, welling up, outbreak, rash;
feeling
3A gesture or signal made by moving one’s hand to and fro: he gave a little wave and walked off...
- The bartender will acknowledge this with a similar gesture or a wave.
- She acknowledged the kind gesture with a wave and a smile.
- She acknowledged the gesture with a wave of her own.
Synonyms
gesture, gesticulation, hand movement;
signal, sign, motion, indication
4A slightly curling lock of hair: his hair was drying in unruly waves...
- His unruly dark waves of hair had been blowing across his forehead.
- Everyone knew her hair dried in loose waves, which would shine from all of the delicate oils.
- To avoid tangling and to maintain waves, cover hair with a bonnet at night.
4.1 [in singular] A tendency to curl in a person’s hair: her hair has a slight natural wave...
- Her long dark blonde hair had a natural wave and hung half to her waist.
- We finger-styled Tamara's hair fresh out of the shower, coaxing out the natural wave in her otherwise pin-straight hair.
- Standing at well over six feet, he had long, dark hair with a slight wave to it that just brushed his shoulders.
5 Physics A periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance which may be propagated without net movement of the particles, such as in the passage of undulating motion, heat, or sound. See also standing wave and travelling wave.Song production clearly involves some metabolic cost to a bird because energy is transmitted to the surroundings in the form of sound pressure waves....
- This imbalance creates pressure waves which propagate through the early universe.
- Only in three dimensions can waves propagate in an undistorted and reverberation-free fashion.
Synonyms
ripple, vibration, oscillation, undulation
5.1A single curve in the course of a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance.The amplitude of a wave tells you how much energy the wave has....
- Beyond this point, the damping steals energy from the wave and its amplitude quickly declines.
5.2A periodic variation of an electromagnetic field in the propagation of light or other radiation through a medium or vacuum.The shape, size, and configuration of the transmitting antenna defines the wave frequency and the shape of the transmitted wave....
- Information lies in the frequency and amplitude of the waves recorded in different channels.
- When cornering the first one we found out that when the tracking device was positioned in between the two signals that the wave was disrupted.
Usage
On confusion between wave and waive, see waive (usage).
Phrases
make waves
Phrasal verbs
wave something aside
wave someone/thing down
Derivatives
waveless
- Jonnie and I rode to the beach, which was this big beautiful vast expanse of flat sand and waveless ocean.
- Situated west of Cape Cod, Nantasket is shadowed from swells that originate from the south to east-southeast, making the ocean here a waveless lake through much of the summer.
- This summer in my part of California has been horrible for the beach, and not unlike those long hot waveless summers Florida can have.
wave-like
- As the fans blow softly, it creates a wave-like undulation under the cloth, creating the impression that one is looking at objects submerged beneath the movement of a black ocean.
- For miles around, the terrain is made up of strange wave-like formations of sandstone, dotted with caves and pockmarked with craters.
- The wave-like shapes of the far hills were already indistinct.
Origin
Old English wafian (verb), from the Germanic base of waver; the noun by alteration (influenced by the verb) of Middle English wawe '(sea) wave'.
wobble from mid 17th century:
A German word first used in English in the mid 17th century. Wobble is related to wave (Old English) and waver (Middle English) which come from Old Norse, and until the mid 19th century was generally spelled wabble. To throw a wobbly is to have a fit of temper or panic. This is a recent expression recorded only from the 1960s, first of all in New Zealand, although throw a wobbler appears in the 1930s, in a US dictionary of underworld and prison slang. Wave did not come to be used for hair until the mid 19th century and the expression to make waves dates only from the 1960s. Mexican wave describing a wavelike effect when spectators stand, raise their arms, and sit again in successive crowd sections, originated at the World Cup football competition held in Mexico City in 1986.