WAVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Wave mean? 

• WAVE (noun)
  The noun WAVE has 9 senses:

1. one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)

2. a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon

3. (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth

4. something that rises rapidly

5. the act of signaling by a movement of the hand

6. a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair

7. an undulating curve

8. a persistent and widespread unusual weather condition (especially of unusual temperatures)

9. 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

  Familiarity information: WAVE used as a noun is familiar.

• WAVE (verb)
  The verb WAVE has 5 senses:

1. signal with the hands or nod

2. move or swing back and forth

3. move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion

4. twist or roll into coils or ringlets

5. set waves in

  Familiarity information: WAVE used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WAVE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

moving ridge; wave

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

motion; movement (a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

riffle; ripple; rippling; wavelet (a small wave on the surface of a liquid)

white horse; whitecap (a wave that is blown by the wind so its crest is broken and appears white)

comber (a long curling sea wave)

roll; roller; rolling wave (a long heavy sea wave as it advances towards the shore)

tsunami (a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption)

tidal wave (an unusual (and often destructive) rise of water along the seashore caused by a storm or a combination of wind and high tide)

tidal wave (a wave resulting from the periodic flow of the tides that is caused by the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun)

billow; surge (a large sea wave)

lift; rise (a wave that lifts the surface of the water or ground)

crestless wave; swell (the undulating movement of the surface of the open sea)

swash (the movement or sound of water)

backwash; wake (the wave that spreads behind a boat as it moves forward)

breaker; breakers; surf (waves breaking on the shore)

Derivation:

wavelet (a small wave on the surface of a liquid)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

troops advancing in waves

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

motility; motion; move; movement (a change of position that does not entail a change of location)

Derivation:

wave (move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(physics) a movement up and down or back and forth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

undulation; wave

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

motion; movement (a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something)

Domain category:

natural philosophy; physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

wave form; wave shape; waveform (the shape of a wave illustrated graphically by plotting the values of the period quantity against time)

flap; flapping; flutter; fluttering (the motion made by flapping up and down)

impulse; pulsation; pulse; pulsing ((electronics) a sharp transient wave in the normal electrical state (or a series of such transients))

blast wave; shock wave (a region of high pressure travelling through a gas at a high velocity)

acoustic wave; sound wave ((acoustics) a wave that transmits sound)

traveling wave; travelling wave (a wave in which the medium moves in the direction of propagation of the wave)

standing wave; stationary wave (a wave (as a sound wave in a chamber or an electromagnetic wave in a transmission line) in which the ratio of its instantaneous amplitude at one point to that at any other point does not vary with time)

seiche (a wave on the surface of a lake or landlocked bay; caused by atmospheric or seismic disturbances)

fluctuation (a wave motion)

oscillation; vibration ((physics) a regular periodic variation in value about a mean)

sine wave (a wave whose waveform resembles a sine curve)

gravitation wave; gravity wave ((physics) a wave that is hypothesized to propagate gravity and to travel at the speed of light)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Something that rises rapidly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

a wave of conservatism in the country led by the hard right

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

rise (a growth in strength or number or importance)

Sense 5

Meaning:

The act of signaling by a movement of the hand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

wafture; wave; waving

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

gesture; motion (the use of movements (especially of the hands) to communicate familiar or prearranged signals)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

brandish; flourish (the act of waving)

Derivation:

wave (signal with the hands or nod)

Sense 6

Meaning:

A hairdo that creates undulations in the hair

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

coif; coiffure; hair style; hairdo; hairstyle (the arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

perm; permanent; permanent wave (a series of waves in the hair made by applying heat and chemicals)

finger wave (a wave made with the fingers)

Derivation:

wave (set waves in)

wave (twist or roll into coils or ringlets)

wavy ((of hair) having waves)

Sense 7

Meaning:

An undulating curve

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

undulation; wave

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

curve; curved shape (the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

sine curve; sinusoid (the curve of y=sin x)

Sense 8

Meaning:

A persistent and widespread unusual weather condition (especially of unusual temperatures)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Context example:

a heat wave

Hypernyms ("wave" is a kind of...):

atmospheric condition; conditions; weather; weather condition (the atmospheric conditions that comprise the state of the atmosphere in terms of temperature and wind and clouds and precipitation)

Meronyms (parts of "wave"):

wave front (all the points just reached by a wave as it propagates)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wave"):

cold wave (a wave of unusually cold weather)

heat wave (a wave of unusually hot weather)

Sense 9

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("Wave" is a kind of...):

reservist (a member of a military reserve)

adult female; woman (an adult female person (as opposed to a man))

• WAVE (verb)

Conjugation:

Sense 1

Meaning:

Signal with the hands or nod

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

beckon; wave

Context example:

He waved his hand hospitably

Hypernyms (to "wave" is one way to...):

gesticulate; gesture; motion (show, express or direct through movement)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s to somebody

Derivation:

wave (the act of signaling by a movement of the hand)

waver (someone who communicates by waving)

waving (the act of signaling by a movement of the hand)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Move or swing back and forth

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

brandish; flourish; wave

Context example:

She waved her gun

Hypernyms (to "wave" is one way to...):

displace; move (cause to move or shift into a new position or place, both in a concrete and in an abstract sense)

"Wave" entails doing...:

hold; take hold (have or hold in one's hands or grip)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wave"):

wigwag (send a signal by waving a flag or a light according to a certain code)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

waver (someone who communicates by waving)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

flap; roll; undulate; wave

Context example:

the waves rolled towards the beach

Hypernyms (to "wave" is one way to...):

move (move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wave"):

luff (flap when the wind is blowing equally on both sides)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

wave (a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Twist or roll into coils or ringlets

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

curl; wave

Context example:

curl my hair, please

Hypernyms (to "wave" is one way to...):

twist (turn in the opposite direction)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wave"):

crape; crimp; frizz; frizzle; kink; kink up (curl tightly)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

They wave their hair

Derivation:

wave (a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Set waves in

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Context example:

she asked the hairdresser to wave her hair

Hypernyms (to "wave" is one way to...):

arrange; coif; coiffe; coiffure; do; dress; set (arrange attractively)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wave"):

marcel (make a marcel in a woman's hair)

gauffer; goffer (make wavy with a heated goffering iron)

perm (give a permanent wave to)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They wave their hair

Derivation:

wave (a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair)

 Context examples 

I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Wave-1 activation by Rac1 and Nck releases Wave-1 with Hspc300 to activate actin Y branching and polymerization by Arp2/3.

(Actin Branching Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

“This gentleman?” said he, with a wave in my direction.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the Inspector bowed.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I shouted loudly and waved my handkerchief.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Look!” said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could not enter the old place, he turned away.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And think of the challenge which was ever waving in those days before the eyes of a coast-living lad!

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They prove that Zealandia was not always as deep beneath the waves as it is today.

(Scientists return from expedition to lost continent of Zealandia, National Science Foundation)