wax

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various natural, oily or greasy heat-sensitive substances, consisting of hydrocarbons or esters of fatty acids that are insoluble in water but soluble in nonpolar organic solvents.
2. n. Beeswax.
3. n. Cerumen.
4. n. A solid plastic or pliable liquid substance, such as ozocerite or paraffin, originating from petroleum and found in rock layers and used in paper coating, as insulation, in crayons, and often in medicinal preparations.
5. n. A preparation containing wax used for polishing floors and other surfaces.
6. n. A resinous mixture used by shoemakers to rub on thread.
7. n. A phonograph record.
8. n. Something suggestive of wax in being impressionable or readily molded.
9. adj. Made of wax: a wax candle.
10. v. To coat, treat, or polish with wax.
11. v. Informal To make a phonograph record of.
12. idiom. on wax In the medium of phonograph recordings.
13. v. To increase gradually in size, number, strength, or intensity.
14. v. To show a progressively larger illuminated area, as the moon does in passing from new to full.
15. v. To grow or become as specified: "could afford ... to wax sentimental over their heritage” ( John Simon).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Black sealing-wax.
2. n. A local name in Texas for sticky clay containing much black-colored humus.
3. To beat; thrash.
4. To grow; increase in size; become larger or greater: as, the moon waxes and wanes.
5. To pass from one state to another; become; grow: as, to wax strong; to wax old.
6. n. Growth; increase; prosperity.
7. n. A wood.
8. n. A thick, sticky substance secreted by bees, and used to build their cells; the material of honeycomb; beeswax. In its natural state it is of a dull-yellow color, and smells of honey. Its consistency varies with the temperature; it is ordinarily a pliable solid, readily melted. When purified and bleached, it becomes translucent white, is less tenacious, without taste or smell, and of a specific gravity a little less than that of water. It softens at 80° F., be coming extremely plastic, and retaining any form in which it may be molded, like clay or putty, and melts at 158° F. In chemical composition, wax consists of variable proportions of three substances, called myrocin, cerolein, and cerotic acid. Wax is nsed for many purposes, both in its natural state and variously prepared. As bleached, and also then variously tinted, it is made into wax candles, which give a peculiarly soft light. In pharmacy it enters into the composition of various plasters, ointments, and cerates, as a vehicle for the active ingredients, and to confer upon the preparation a desired consistency. It has varied uses in the plastic arts, especially in the making of anatomical models, artificial flowers and fruits, casts and impressions of various kinds, etc.
9. n. One of various substances and products resembling beeswax in appearance, consistency, plasticity, and the like, or used for like purposes. The substance worked up from the pollen of flowers by the hind legs of bees, and used to feed their larvæ; bee-bread, formerly supposed to be beeswax.
10. n. A thick resinous substance, consisting of pitch, resin, and tallow, used by shoemakers for rubbing their thread.
11. n. A thick syrup produced by boiling down the sap of the sugar-maple tree, cooling on ice, etc.
12. n. Dung of cattle.
13. n. In coal-mining, puddled clay, used for dams and stoppings.
14. n. Chinese wax, or pela. (See also banking-wax, bottle-wax, myrtle-wax, ocuba-wax, sealing-wax.)
15. To treat with wax; smear or rub with wax; make waxy: as, to wax a thread; to wax the floor or a piece of furniture.
16. To plaster with clay.
17. n. A rage; a passion.

Wiktionary

1. n. Beeswax.
2. n. Earwax.
3. n. Any oily, water-resistant substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
4. n. Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
5. n. A phonograph record.
6. adj. Made of wax.
7. v. transitive To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
8. v. transitive To remove hair at the roots from (a part of the body) by coating the skin with a film of wax that is then pulled away sharply.
9. v. transitive, informal To defeat utterly.
10. v. transitive, slang To kill, especially to murder a person.
11. v. intransitive, with adjective To increasingly assume the specified characteristic, become.
12. v. intransitive, literary To grow.
13. v. intransitive To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
14. n. rare The process of growing.
15. n. dated, colloquial An outburst of anger.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To increase in size; to grow bigger; to become larger or fuller; -- opposed to wane.
2. v. To pass from one state to another; to become; to grow
3. n. A fatty, solid substance, produced by bees, and employed by them in the construction of their comb; -- usually called beeswax. It is first excreted, from a row of pouches along their sides, in the form of scales, which, being masticated and mixed with saliva, become whitened and tenacious. Its natural color is pale or dull yellow.
4. n. Hence, any substance resembling beeswax in consistency or appearance.
5. n. (Physiol.) Cerumen, or earwax.
6. n. A waxlike composition used for uniting surfaces, for excluding air, and for other purposes.
7. n. A waxlike composition used by shoemakers for rubbing their thread.
8. n. (Zoöl.) A substance similar to beeswax, secreted by several species of scale insects, as the Chinese wax. See Wax insect, below.
9. n. (Bot.) A waxlike product secreted by certain plants. See Vegetable wax, under Vegetable.
10. n. (Min.) A substance, somewhat resembling wax, found in connection with certain deposits of rock salt and coal; -- called also mineral wax, and ozocerite.
11. n. Local U. S. Thick sirup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple, and then cooling.
12. n. any of numerous substances or mixtures composed predominantly of the longer-chain saturated hydrocarbons such as the paraffins, which are solid at room teperature, or their alcohol, carboxylic acid, or ester derivatives.
13. v. To smear or rub with wax; to treat with wax.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. cover with wax
2. n. any of various substances of either mineral origin or plant or animal origin; they are solid at normal temperatures and insoluble in water
3. v. increase in phase
4. v. go up or advance