WAVE, n. [G.]

1. A moving swell or volume of water; usually, a swell raised and driven by wind. A pebble thrown into still water produces waves, which form concentric circles, receding from the point where the pebble fell. But waves are generally raised and driven by wind, and the word comprehends any moving swell on the surface of water, from the smallest ripple to the billows of a tempest. The wave behind impels the wave before. – Pope.
2. Unevenness; inequality of surface. – Newton.
3. The line or streak of luster on cloth watered and calendered.

1. To play loosely; to move like a wave, one way and the other; to float; to undulate. His purple robes wav'd careless to the winds. – Trumbull.
2. To be moved, as a signal. – B. Jonson.
3. To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state. [Obs.]

1. To raise into inequalities of surface. – Shak.
2. To move one way and the other; to brandish; as, to wave the hand; to wave a sword. – Dryden.
3. To waft; to remove any thing floating. – Brown.
4. To beckon; to direct by a waft or waving motion. – Shak.

1. To put off; to cast off; to cast away; to reject; as, to wave goods stolen; usually written waive.
2. To quit; to depart from. He resolved not to wave his way. – Wotton.
3. To put off; to put aside for the present, or to omit to pursue; as, to wave a motion. He offered to wave the subject. [This is the usual sense.]
4. To relinquish, as a right, claim, or privilege. [Generally written waive.]

1. See Waive.
   
   
   Sir H. Wotton. Burke.
2. To play loosely; to move like a wave, one way and the other; to float; to flutter; to undulate.
   
   

   His purple robes waved careless to the winds. Trumbull.

   Where the flags of three nations has successively waved. Hawthorne.

3. To move one way and the other; to brandish.
   
   
   "[Æneas] waved his fatal sword." Dryden.
4. An advancing ridge or swell on the surface of a liquid, as of the sea, resulting from the oscillatory motion of the particles composing it when disturbed by any force their position of rest; an undulation.
   
   

   The wave behind impels the wave before. Pope.

5. Something resembling or likened to a water wave, as in rising unusually high, in being of unusual extent, or in progressive motion; a swelling or excitement, as of feeling or energy; a tide; flood; period of intensity, usual activity, or the like; as, a wave of enthusiasm.
6. To be moved to and fro as a signal.
   
   
   B. Jonson.
7. To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form a surface to.
   
   

   Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea. Shak.

8. A vibration propagated from particle to particle through a body or elastic medium, as in the transmission of sound; an assemblage of vibrating molecules in all phases of a vibration, with no phase repeated; a wave of vibration; an undulation. See Undulation.
9. To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state; to vacillate.
   
   
   [Obs.]

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

10. To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.
    
    
    [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.
11. Water; a body of water.
    
    
    [Poetic] "Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave." Sir W. Scott.

    Build a ship to save thee from the flood,
    I 'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine. Chapman.

12. 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.
    
    

    Look, with what courteous action
    It waves you to a more removed ground. Shak.

    She spoke, and bowing waved
    Dismissal. Tennyson.

13. Unevenness; inequality of surface.
    
    
    Sir I. Newton.
14. A waving or undulating motion; a signal made with the hand, a flag, etc.
15. The undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered, or calendered, or on damask steel.
16. Fig.: A swelling or excitement of thought, feeling, or energy; a tide; as, waves of enthusiasm.
    
    

    Wave front (Physics), the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances. -- Wave length (Physics), the space, reckoned in the direction of propagation, occupied by a complete wave or undulation, as of light, sound, etc.; the distance from a point or phase in a wave to the nearest point at which the same phase occurs. - - Wave line (Shipbuilding), a line of a vessel's hull, shaped in accordance with the wave-line system. -- Wave-line system, Wave-line theory (Shipbuilding), a system or theory of designing the lines of a vessel, which takes into consideration the length and shape of a wave which travels at a certain speed. -- Wave loaf, a loaf for a wave offering. Lev. viii. 27. -- Wave moth (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of small geometrid moths belonging to Acidalia and allied genera; -- so called from the wavelike color markings on the wings. -- Wave offering, an offering made in the Jewish services by waving the object, as a loaf of bread, toward the four cardinal points. Num. xviii. 11. -- Wave of vibration (Physics), a wave which consists in, or is occasioned by, the production and transmission of a vibratory state from particle to particle through a body. -- Wave surface. (a) (Physics) A surface of simultaneous and equal displacement of the particles composing a wave of vibration. (b) (Geom.) A mathematical surface of the fourth order which, upon certain hypotheses, is the locus of a wave surface of light in the interior of crystals. It is used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction. See under Refraction. -- Wave theory. (Physics) See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.