wave

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
wave/weɪv/

▶verb

• 1 move one's hand to and fro in greeting or as a signal.

  ■ move (one's hand or arm, or something held in one's hand) to and fro.

  ■ (wave someone/thing down) wave one's hand to stop a driver or vehicle.

  ■ (wave something aside) dismiss something as unnecessary or irrelevant.

• 2 move to and fro with a swaying motion while remaining fixed to one point.

• 3 style (hair) so that it curls slightly.

  ■ (of hair) grow with a slight curl.

▶noun

• 1 a ridge of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore or between two depressions in open water.

  ■ (the waves) literary the sea.

• 2 a sudden occurrence of or increase in a specified phenomenon or emotion: a crime wave.

• 3 a gesture or signal made by waving one's hand.

• 4 a slightly curling lock of hair.

  ■ a tendency to curl in a person's hair.

• 5 Physics a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance which may be propagated without net movement of the particles, as in the passage of undulating motion or sound.

  ■ a single curve in the course of this motion.

  ■ a similar variation of an electromagnetic field in the propagation of light or other radiation.

– phrases
make waves informal

• 1 create a significant impression.

• 2 cause trouble.

– derivatives
waveless adjective.

– origin OE wafian (v.), from the Gmc base of waver; the noun by alt. (influenced by the verb) of ME wawe ‘(sea) wave’.

usage: On the confusion between wave and waive, see usage at waive.