wave

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To move freely back and forth or up and down in the air, as branches in the wind.
2. v. To make a signal with an up-and-down or back-and-forth movement of the hand or an object held in the hand: waved as she drove by.
3. v. To have an undulating or wavy form; curve or curl: Her hair waves naturally.
4. v. To cause to move back and forth or up and down, either once or repeatedly: She waved a fan before her face.
5. v. To move or swing as in giving a signal: He waved his hand. See Synonyms at flourish.
6. v. To signal or express by waving the hand or an object held in the hand: We waved goodbye.
7. v. To signal (a person) to move in a specified direction: The police officer waved the motorist into the right lane.
8. v. To arrange into curves, curls, or undulations: wave one's hair.
9. n. A ridge or swell moving through or along the surface of a large body of water.
10. n. A small ridge or swell moving across the interface of two fluids and dependent on surface tension.
11. n. The sea. Often used in the plural: vanished beneath the waves.
12. n. Something that suggests the form and motion of a wave in the sea, especially:
13. n. A moving curve or succession of curves in or on a surface; an undulation: waves of wheat in the wind.
14. n. A curve or succession of curves, as in the hair.
15. n. A curved shape, outline, or pattern.
16. n. A movement up and down or back and forth: a wave of the hand.
17. n. A surge or rush, as of sensation: a wave of nausea; a wave of indignation.
18. n. A sudden great rise, as in activity or intensity: a wave of panic selling on the stock market.
19. n. A rising trend that involves large numbers of individuals: a wave of conservatism.
20. n. One of a succession of mass movements: the first wave of settlers.
21. n. A maneuver in which fans at a sports event simulate an ocean wave by rising quickly in sequence with arms upraised and then quickly sitting down again in a continuous rolling motion.
22. n. A widespread, persistent meteorological condition, especially of temperature: a heat wave.
23. n. Physics A disturbance traveling through a medium by which energy is transferred from one particle of the medium to another without causing any permanent displacement of the medium itself.
24. n. Physics A graphic representation of the variation of such a disturbance with time.
25. n. Physics A single cycle of such a disturbance.
26. wave off To dismiss or refuse by waving the hand or arm: waved off his invitation to join the group.
27. wave off Sports To cancel or nullify by waving the arms, usually from a crossed position: waved off the goal because time had run out.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A manufacturers' name for a defect in articles of glass, consisting in a slightly protuberant ridge on the surface due to the glass having cooled irregularly and too much before blowing.
2. To move up and down or to and fro; undulate; fluctuate; bend or sway back and forth; flutter.
3. To have an undulating form or direction; curve alternately in opposite directions.
4. To give a signal by a gesture of movement up and down or to and fro.
5. To waver in mind; vacillate.
6. To move to and fro; cause to shake, rock, or sway; brandish.
7. Specifically To offer as a wave-offering. See wave-offering.
8. To shape or dispose in undulations; cause to wind in and out, as a line in curves, or a surface in ridges and furrows.
9. To decorate with a waving or winding pattern.
10. To signal by a wave of the hand, or of a flag, a handkerchief, or the like; direct by a waving gesture or other movement, as in beckoning.
11. To express, as a command, direction, farewell, etc., by a waving movement or gesture.
12. To water, as silk. See water, v. t., 3.
13. n. A disturbance of the surface of a body in the form of ridge and trough, propagated by forces tending to restore the surface to its figure of equilibrium, the particles not advancing with the wave.
14. n. Water; a stream; the sea.
15. n. A form assumed by parts of a body which are out of equilibrium, such that as fast as the particles return they are replaced by others moving into neighboring positions of stress, so that the whole disturbance is continually propagated into new parts of the body while preserving more or less perfectly the same shape and other characters. In a somewhat wider sense the word is applied in cases where there is no progression through the body; thus, the shape of a vibrating piano-string may be called a wave. But in its narrowest and most proper sense it is restricted to an advancing elevation or depression of the surface of a body. An advancing elevatiou is called a positive wave, a depression a negative wave. Waves on the surfaces of liquids are distinguished into four orders. A wave of the first order, also called a wave of translation, leaves the particles, after its passage, shifted in the line of its motion. It is also called a solitary wave, because a single impulse produces but one elevation or depression, which has no definite length, but extends over the whole surface. The negative wave of this sort shortly breaks; it is only the positive wave, which leaves the particles in advance of their initial positions, which can be propagated far. This wave is also called Scott Russell's great wave, because it was first discovered by that engineer in 1834, and because, owing to its form, it cannot be seen unless it is very high. The velocity of such a wave is equal to , where g is the acceleration of gravity, h the depth of the liquid in repose, and k the height of the crest of the wave above the plane of repose. This wave dies down of itself in a canal of uniform depth, independently of friction, and when it passes into shallow water it breaks as soon as h is no greater than k. A canal-boat produces such a wave, and consequently can be propelled at the rate of speed of the wave far more economically than at any other. In waves of the second order, called oscillatory waves, observation shows that each particle describes at a uniform rate of motion a circle in a vertical plane; but according to theory other orbits are possible. The particle at the crest of the wave is at the highest part of its path, that in the trough at the lowest. As long as the momentum of the particles is kept up, wave must succeed wave. If the water has a flow opposite to the direction of propagation of the waves and equal to it in velocity, it is plain that each particle will describe a prolate cycloid, and this is consequently the form of the waves. Waves thus brought to a standstill by the flow of the water are called standing waves. (See fig. 1.) They are often seen in rapidly running water. If the motion of the liquid is irrotational, theory shows that the waves cannot be cycloidal. But in regard to this whole subject neither theory nor observation can be trusted implicitly to give the truth of nature. The velocity of propagation of oscillatory waves, at least in deep water, is represented by the expression ✓(gλ/2π), where λ is the length of the wave from crest to crest. But the velocity of propagation of a group of waves is much slower. Oscillatory waves break on a shelving shore when their height is about equal to the depth of the water, and from each one, as it breaks, a wave of the first order is produced. (See fig. 2.) Waves of the third order, called ripples, are distinguished from those of the second order in the fact that the shorter they are the more rapidly they move. While an oscillatory wave 32 inches long will advance 3 feet per second, and one of 3 inches long only 1 foot per second, a ripple a quarter of an inch long will move 1 foot per second, a ripple an eighth of an inch long will move 1½ feet per second, and so on. The reason is that the force of restoration of the particles is here not chiefly gravity, but the surface-tension of the liquid. Ripples very rapidly die out. Waves of the fourth order are sound-waves. They are propagated in water at the rate of about 1,580 yards per second—that is, at a much greater speed than that of sound in air. In the case of sound propagated in the air, the waves are formed by the alternate forward and back motion of the air-particles in the direction in which the sound is being propagated; the waves are consequently waves of condensation and rarefaction, having in the free air a spherical form. The amplitude of vibration or excursion of each particle is very small, but the wave-length is large—for the middle C of the keyboard, about 4½ feet. A sound-wave travels in air about 1,100 feet per second. (See further under sound.) In the case of radiant energy (heat and light) propagated through the ether, the ether-particles vibrate transversely to the line of propagation; here the wave-length is very small—for violet light, about 0.000,016 of an inch, for red about twice this length, while the dark heat-waves, though much longer, are still very minute (see spectrum). A lightwave (or, more generally, an ether-wave) travels in space about 185,000 miles per second. Hertz has shown recently (1887) that by a very rapid oscillating electrical discharge, as between two knobs, a disturbance is produced in the surrounding ether which is propagated as electric waves with a velocity like that of light. These electric waves in Hertz's experiments were found to have a wave-length of upward of one meter. They are reflected from the surface of a conductor, but are transmitted by a non-conductor, as pitch, and may be brought to a focus; they may be made to interfere, then forming nodal points, and by passage through a grating of parallel wires they may be polarized. These electric waves are hence in all essential respects like light-waves, but differ in their relatively enormous length and the corresponding slowness of the oscillations. These experiments of Hertz form a most important confirmation of the electromagnetic theory of light proposed by Maxwell (see light).
16. n. One of a series of curves in a waving line, or of ridges in a furrowed surface; an undulation; a swell.
17. n. Figuratively, a flood, influx, or rush of anything, marked by unusual volume, extent, uprising. etc., and thus contrasted with preceding and following periods of the opposite character; something that swells like a sea-wave at recurring intervals; often, a period of intensity, activity, or important results: as, a wave of religious enthusiasm; waves of prosperity.
18. n. Specifically In meteorology, a progressive oscillation of atmospheric pressure or temperature, or an advancing movement of large extent in which these are considerably above or below the normal: as, an air-wave, barometric wave, cold wave, warm wave, etc. The term barometric wave is often restricted to those changes in atmospheric pressure which are not connected with cyclonic disturbances nor with the regular diurnal variation, but which include progressive oscillations of a varied character and origin, ranging from those of a short wave-length, which occupy but a fraction of a minute in their passage, to those which cover thousands of miles and occupy several days in their development and subsidence. The remarkable air-waves generated by the eruption of Krakatoa are shown by barographic traces to have had an initial velocity of 700 miles an hour, and to have traveled round the earth not less than seven times.
19. n. A waved or wavy line of color or texture; an undulation; specifically, the undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered and calendered.
20. n. A waving; a gesture, or a signal given by waving.
21. n. A book-name of certain geometrid moths. Thus, Acidalia rubricata is the tawny wave; A. contiguaria is Greening's wave; Venusia cambraria is the Welsh wave, etc.
22. n. In general, on sea-coasts, the increased wave-motion accompanying storms.
23. n. =Syn 1. Wave., Billow, Surge, Breaker, Surf, Swell, Ripple. Wave is the general word. A billow is a great round and rolling wave. Surge is only a somewhat stronger word for billow. A breaker is a wave breaking or about to break upon the shore or upon rocks. Surf is the collective name for breakers: as, to bathe in the surf; it is sometimes popularly used for the foam at the edge or crest of the breaker. Swell is the name for the fact of the rising (and falling) of water, especially after the wind has subsided, or for the water that so rises (and falls), or for any particular and occasional disturbance of water by such rising (and falling): as, the boat was swamped by the swell from the steamer. Ripple is the name for the smallest kind of wave.
24. A former spelling of waive.
25. An obsolete preterit of weave.

Wiktionary

1. v. intransitive To move back and forth repeatedly.
2. v. intransitive To wave one’s hand in greeting or departure.
3. v. intransitive To have an undulating or wavy form.
4. v. transitive To produce waves to the hair.
5. v. intransitive, baseball To swing and miss at a pitch.
6. v. transitive To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.
7. v. transitive To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.
8. n. A moving disturbance in the level of a body of water; an undulation.
9. n. physics A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.
10. n. A shape which alternatingly curves in opposite directions.
11. n. figuratively A sudden unusually large amount of something that is temporarily experienced.
12. n. A sideway movement of the hand(s).
13. n. A group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit. Usually referred to as "the wave"
14. v. Obsolete spelling of waive.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. See waive.
2. v. To play loosely; to move like a wave, one way and the other; to float; to flutter; to undulate.
3. v. To be moved to and fro as a signal.
4. v. obsolete To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate.
5. v. To move one way and the other; to brandish.
6. v. To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form a surface to.
7. v. obsolete To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.
8. v. 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.
9. n. 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.
10. n. (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.
11. n. Poetic Water; a body of water.
12. n. Unevenness; inequality of surface.
13. n. A waving or undulating motion; a signal made with the hand, a flag, etc.
14. n. The undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered, or calendered, or on damask steel.
15. n. 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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth
2. n. one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)
3. n. a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair
4. n. something that rises rapidly
5. v. set waves in
6. v. move or swing back and forth
7. n. a member of the women's reserve of the United States Navy; originally organized during World War II but now no longer a separate branch
8. v. signal with the hands or nod
9. v. twist or roll into coils or ringlets
10. n. an undulating curve
11. n. a persistent and widespread unusual weather condition (especially of unusual temperatures)
12. n. the act of signaling by a movement of the hand
13. v. move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion
14. n. a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon