Wave | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Wāve, n.

noun

n. [A-S. wæg, wĕg, Dan. vove, Sw. våg, Icel. vogr, N. H. Ger. woge, O. H. Ger. wåg, O. Fries. weg, wei, O. Sax. wåg, Goth. vĕgs, from vĭgan, A-S. wegan, to move.]

Sense 1. An advancing ridge or swell on the surface of a liquid, resulting from the oscillatory motion of the particles composing it, when disturbed by any force from their position of rest; an undulation.

The wave behind impels the wave before. Pope.

Sense 2. (Physics.) A state of 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.

Sense 3. Water.

Build a ship to save thee from the flood, I'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine. Chapman.

Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave. W. Scott.

Sense 4. Unevenness; inequality of surface. Newton.

Sense 5. The undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered and calendered.

Sense 6. A waving or undulating motion; a signal made with the hand, a flag, or the like.

Wave front, the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances. — Wave of vibration, a wave which consists in, or is produced 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.

Wāve, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. [imp. & p. p. WAVED; p. pr. & vb. n. WAVING.] [A-S. wagian, O. H. Ger. wagōn. Cf. also A-S. wāvan, M. H. Ger. wēwen, to blow. See supra.] 1. To play loosely; to move like a wave, one way and the other; to float; to undulate. His purple robes waved careless to the winds. Trumbull.

To be moved, as a signal.
To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate. [Rare.]

He waved indifferently ’twixt doing them neither good nor harm. Shak.

Wāve, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [See supra.] 1. To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to. Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea. Shak. 2. To move one way and the other; to brandish. Aeneas waved his fatal sword. Dryden.

To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft. [Obs.] Browne.
To call attention to, or give a direction to, by a waving motion; to beckon; to signal.

*Look with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground; But do not go with it. Shak.*

Wāve, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [Norm. Fr. weyner, to wave or waive, waifnez, waived, wefs, weifs, waifs, weynez, deserted, relinquished, O. Fr. guecer, guesver, to abandon, L. Lat. wayvare, wayviare, waviare, to leave, Sw. viga, to shun, avoid, O. Sw. väga, vägia, to shun, from väg, way. Cf. A-S. wafian, to hesitate, O. H. Ger. weibōn, to flow, weihjan, to destroy, wīhan, to weave, N. H. Ger. weifen, to reel, reel off, to set boundaries or landmarks.] [Usually written waive.] 1. To put off; to cast off; to cast away; to reject; as, to waive goods stolen. “Waving all our arguments except the last.” J. S. Mill. These observations are rather implied than expressed in the words. I shall waive them. South.

To relinquish, as a right, claim, or privilege.
To depart from; to quit. [Obs.]

He resolved not to waive his way. Wotton.

Wāve, n.

noun

(wāv), n. A wave. [Obs.] Spencer.