Wave (?), v. t.
See Wave.
Sir H. Wotton. Burke.
© Webster 1913.
Wave, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Waved (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Waving.] [OE. waven, AS. wafian to waver, to hesitate, to wonder; akin to waefre wavering, restless, MHG. wabern to be in motion, Icel. vafra to hover about; cf. Icel. vafa to vibrate. Cf. Waft, Waver.]
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.
Hawthorne.
2.
To be moved to and fro as a signal.
B. Jonson.
3.
To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate.
[Obs.]
He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm.
Shak.
© Webster 1913.
Wave, v. t.
1.
To move one way and the other; to brandish.
"[Aeneas]
waved his fatal sword."
Dryden.
2.
To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form a surface to.
Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea.
Shak.
3.
To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.
[Obs.]
Sir T. Browne.
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.
Shak.
She spoke, and bowing waved
Dismissal.
Tennyson.
© Webster 1913.
Wave, n. [From Wave, v.; not the same word as OE. wawe, waghe, a wave, which is akin to E. wag to move. . See Wave, v. i.]
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.
Pope.
2. Physics
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.
3.
Water; a body of water.
[Poetic] "Deep drank Lord Marmion of the
wave."
Sir W. Scott.
Build a ship to save thee from the flood,
I 'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine.
Chapman.
4.
Unevenness; inequality of surface.
Sir I. Newton.
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.
Fig.: A swelling or excitement of thought, feeling, or energy; a tide; as, waves of enthusiasm.
Wave front Physics, the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances. -- Wave length Physics, 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 Shipbuilding, a line of a vessel's hull, shaped in accordance with the wave-line system. -- Wave-line system, Wave-line theory Shipbuilding, 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. Lev. viii. 27. -- Wave moth Zool., 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. Num. xviii. 11. -- Wave of vibration Physics, 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) Physics A surface of simultaneous and equal displacement of the particles composing a wave of vibration. (b) Geom. A mathematical surface of the fourth order which, upon certain hypotheses, is the locus of a wave surface of light in the interior of crystals. It is used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction. See under Refraction. -- Wave theory. Physics See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.
© Webster 1913.
Wave (?), n. [See Woe.]
Woe.
[Obs.]
© Webster 1913.