Search results
- Dictionarywave/weɪv/
verb
- 1. move one's hand to and fro in greeting or as a signal: "he waved to me from the train" Similar
- 2. move to and fro with a swaying motion while remaining fixed to one point: "the flag waved in the wind" Similar
noun
- 1. a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore: "he was swept out to sea by a freak wave" Similar
- 2. a sudden occurrence of or increase in a phenomenon, feeling, or emotion: "its remarkable how one small gesture can create a wave of kindness" Similar
Powered by Oxford Dictionaries
The meaning of WAVE is to motion with the hands or with something held in them in signal or salute. How to use wave in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Wave.
to raise your hand and move it from side to side as a way of greeting someone, telling someone to do something, or adding emphasis to an expression: wave to/at I waved to/at him from the window but he didn't see me. I was waving my hand like mad but he never once looked in my direction.
a disturbance on the surface of a liquid body, as the sea or a lake, in the form of a moving ridge or swell. Synonyms: whitecap, undulation. any surging or progressing movement or part resembling a wave of the sea: a wave of the pulse. a swell, surge, or rush, as of feeling or of a certain condition:
In physics, mathematics, engineering, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Periodic waves oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (resting) value at some frequency.
wave, propagation of disturbances from place to place in a regular and organized way. Most familiar are surface waves that travel on water, but sound, light, and the motion of subatomic particles all exhibit wavelike properties.
noun. /weɪv/ Idioms. of water. [countable] a raised line of water that moves across the surface of the sea, ocean, etc. Huge waves were breaking on the shore. Surfers flocked to the beach to ride the waves. the gentle sound of waves lapping. The wind made little waves on the pond. in the waves Children were playing in the waves.
Use the verb wave to describe a greeting that includes a hand motion, from the enthusiastic flapping wave of a little kid meeting his dad at the airport to the prim wave of a Queen acknowledging her subjects. In physics, when you talk about a sound wave, there is a similar kind of rise and fall.
: to move your hand or something held in your hand usually in a repeated motion in order to signal or greet someone. [no object] We waved to our friends through the window. They waved at us. She was waving in the direction of the bridge. [+ object] We waved goodbye [=waved as a way of saying goodbye] to them and drove away.
a situation in which someone is very successful, happy, etc. They've been on the crest of the wave ever since their election victory. make waves (informal) to be very active in a way that makes people notice you, and that may sometimes cause problems. ride a/the wave of something.
What makes a wave a wave? What characteristics, properties, or behaviors are shared by the phenomena that we typically characterize as being a wave? How can waves be described in a manner that allows us to understand their basic nature and qualities?