Wave
(Wave), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Waved (wavd); p. pr. & vb. n. Waving.] [OE. waven, AS. wafian
to waver, to hesitate, to wonder; akin to wæfre 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. Wave
(Wave), v. t.
1. To move one way and the other; to brandish. "[Æneas] 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. Wave
(Wave), n. [From Wave, v.; not the same word as OE. wawe, waghe, a wave, which is akin to
E. wag to move. &radic136. 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.
