VocabauraVOCABAURA

permanent wave

noun

Simple meaning

A series of waves in the hair produced using chemical substances and heat.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

purmuhnuhntwayv

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɝmənəntˈweɪv

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. british

    A series of waves in the hair produced by means of chemical substances and heat; a perm

  2. British

    A series of waves in the hair made by applying heat and chemicals

  3. physics

    A wave in a moving fluid that does not change shape or position relative to the fluid

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A series of waves in the hair produced by means of chemical substances and heat; a perm

Used this way, permanent wave is a word tied to one variety of English that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Regional
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Science
  • Academic writing
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

Mainly used in British English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.