US /weɪv/
Homophones
noun verb Freq #2505

Meanings

  1. 1
    verb

    To move your hand from side to side to greet someone or say goodbye.

    She waved at her friends from across the street.

  2. 2
    verb

    To move back and forth, or to move something back and forth.

    The flag waved gently in the breeze.

  3. 3
    noun

    A sudden increase or spread of something.

    A wave of new students arrived at the university.

  4. 4
    noun

    A period of unusual weather, especially of high or low temperatures.

    A heat wave hit the city last week.

Thesaurus

Synonyms
1 verb · to move your hand from side... beckon
2 verb · to move back and forth, or... brandishflourish
Word family
Forms wavedwavelesswaveswaving
Derived forms afterwaveairwaveautowaveawavebewaveblastwaveblow-wavebrainwavecoldwavecounterwavecrimewavedarkwave

Common collocations

Etymology

From Middle English *wave, partially from waven (“to fluctuate, wave”) (see above) and partially from Middle English wawe, waghe (“wave”), from Old English wǣg (“a wave, billow, motion, water, flood, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *wēgaz (“motion, storm, wave”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to drag, carry”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian waag (“wave”), West Frisian weach (“wave”), Dutch waag (“wave”), German Woge, Wooge (“wave”), Danish vove, våg (“wave”), Faroese vágur (“bay”), Icelandic vogur (“bay”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish våg (“wave”), Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌲𐍃 (wēgs, “wa…

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Topics

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