wave

verb

1. (intransitive)To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.

   “The flag waved in the gentle breeze.”

   “But the World Cup winning veteran's left boot was awry again, the attempt sliced horribly wide of the left upright, and the saltires were waving aloft again a moment later when a long pass in the England midfield was picked off to almost offer up a breakaway try.”

2. (intransitive)To move one's hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.

   “I raised my arms in a final salute. I smiled. I waved goodbye. I turned into the helicopter, the door was closed, the red carpet was rolled up.”

3. (metonymically, transitive)To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate.

   “I waved goodbye from across the room.”

   “Look, with what courteous action / It waves you to a more removed ground.”

   “She spoke, and bowing waved / Dismissal.”

4. (intransitive)To have an undulating or wavy form.
5. (transitive)To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.

   “horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea”

6. (transitive)To style (the hair) so as to produce a wavy texture.

   “There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs;[…].”

7. (intransitive)To swing and miss at a pitch.

   “Jones waves at strike one.”

8. (transitive)To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.

   “The starter waved the flag to begin the race.”

   “His father has waved bills in front of face and said to him — see what you've cost me.”

9. (metonymically, transitive)To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.
10. (intransitive, obsolete)To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state.

    “He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm.”

11. (ergative, intransitive)To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.

    “But in the last, this dotted line, by the twisting as well as the bending of the horn, is changed from the waving into the serpentine line”

    “the flowers will not bloom less brightly, nor the grass be less green and fresh because it is waving over the head of one who loved to look upon their tender beauty while living.”

    “The cypresslike ferns were not waving over these, as they waved over the corals in the wood, but the little spleenwort, called Wall-rue, was resolved that their tomb should not be without verdure.”

    “The moonlight fell into the room, and the shadows waved over him”

    “Walking through the fields, where the maize was now waving over his head, pale gold with a froth of white, the sharp dead leaves scything crisply against the wind, he could see nothing but that black foetid hut”

12. To generate a wave.

    “If the electron had wavelike properties, then what was disturbing the medium in which the wave existed? What was waving?”

13. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of waive.

    “Ladies and gentlemen—I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waves her right of knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way.”

noun

1. A moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.

   “The wave traveled from the center of the lake before breaking on the shore.”

   “O God! can I not save / One from the pitiless wave? / Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?”

   “A wave simulator in the tank can re-enact tsunamis and northeasters, and imitate wave conditions from midocean.”

   “The new sea wall may stop the waves from the sea, but not from the children who enthusiastically greet our train as it passes. It's great to see this ages-old habit is still going strong.”

2. (poetic)The ocean.

   “1895, Fiona Macleod (William Sharp), The Sin-Eater and Other Tales […] your father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and his sister Anna—one and all, they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown mould.”

   “Whoever rules the waves rules the world...”

3. A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.

   “Gravity waves, while predicted by theory for decades, have been notoriously difficult to detect.”

   “Beyond military applications, cloaking devices are drawing interest from telecommunications companies, who see them as a way to send information by light more efficiently. One idea is to use the new materials to build "superantennas" that can concentrate light and other electromagnetic waves to make laser-like beams.”

4. A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.

   “Her hair had a nice wave to it.”

   “sine wave”

5. Any of a number of species of moths in the geometrid subfamily Sterrhinae, which have wavy markings on the wings.
6. A loose back-and-forth movement, as of the hands.

   “He dismissed her with a wave of the hand.”

7. (figuratively)A sudden, but temporary, uptick in something.

   “A wave of shoppers stampeded through the door when the store opened for its Christmas discount special.”

   “A wave of retirees began moving to the coastal area.”

   “A wave of emotion overcame her when she thought about her son who was killed in battle.”

   “Foster had been left unsighted by Scott Dann's positioning at his post, but the goalkeeper was about to prove his worth to Birmingham by keeping them in the game with a series of stunning saves as West Ham produced waves after wave of attack in their bid to find a crucial second goal.”

8. Any of a series of orders to be fulfilled in one short interval of time, planned as part of wave picking.
9. (figuratively)A movement or trend in popular culture.

   “New Wave”

   “Korean Wave”

10. (broadly)One of the successive swarms of enemies sent to attack the player in certain games.

    “As the player eliminates each wave of 55 aliens, the next wave begins lower than the one previous.”

11. A group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit.
12. (US, historical)A members of the WAVES; a member of the US Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve).

    “[H]e read the faded sticker on the crystal of the door, “A slip of the lip can sink a ship.” Below a WAVE held her finger to lips that had turned tan.”