Wave /(wāv)/

Wave

v. t.
  1. See Waive.

Wave

v. i.

imp. & p. p. Waved; p. pr. & vb. n. Waving

  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.
  2. To be moved to and fro as a signal.
  3. To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate. [Obs.]
    He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm.

Wave

v. t.
  1. To move one way and the other; to brandish.
  2. To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form a surface to.
    Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea.
  3. To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft. [Obs.]
  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.
    She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal.

Wave

n.
  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.
  2. 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. (Physics)
  3. Water; a body of water. [Poetic]
    Build a ship to save thee from the flood, I 'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine.
  4. Unevenness; inequality of surface.
  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. Something resembling or likened to a water wave, as in rising unusually high, in being of unusual extent, or in progressive motion; a swelling or excitement, as of feeling or energy; a tide; flood; period of intensity, usual activity, or the like; as, a wave of enthusiasm; waves of applause.

Phrases & Compounds
Wave front
the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances.
Wave length
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
a line of a vessel's hull, shaped in accordance with the wave-line system.
Wave-line system
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.
Wave moth
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.
Wave of vibration
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 surface of simultaneous and equal displacement of the particles composing a wave of vibration.
Wave theory
See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.