wax

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   increase in phase

   the moon is waxing

2. 2
   verb

   cover with wax

   wax the car

3. 3
   noun

   Earwax.

   What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?

4. 4
   noun

   The phonograph record format for music.

   What really started the corn sprouting on Broadway was a lugubrious tune by Louisiana's Jimmie Davis called It Makes No Difference Now. In the late '30s Decca's Recording Chief David Kapp heard this Texas hit and got it on wax.

5. 5
   noun

   Any of a class of drugs with weed oil and butane as main ingredients; hash oil.

   He was charged with two felonies, for possession of Xanax and wax.

6. 6
   adj

   Made of wax.

   He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

7. 7
   verb

   To coat with wax or a similar material.

   waxed silk

8. 8
   verb

   To form a wax (a thick maple syrup).

   The syrup is waxing. Come and help yourselves.

Etymology

From Middle English waxen, from Old English weaxan (“to wax, grow, be fruitful, increase, become powerful, flourish”), from Proto-West Germanic *wahsan, from Proto-Germanic *wahsijaną (“to grow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weg- (“to grow, increase”). Cognate with Scots wax (“to grow”), West Frisian waakse (“to greaten”), Low German wassen, Dutch wassen (“to greaten”), German wachsen (“to greaten”), Danish and Norwegian vokse (“to greaten”), Swedish växa (“to greaten”), Icelandic vaxa (“to greaten”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌷𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wahsjan, “to grow”); and with Ancient Greek ἀέξειν (aéxein), Latin auxilium.…