wave
verb · noun
Simple meaning
Move or swing back and forth.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wayvIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈweɪv
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Move or swing back and forth
intransitive
To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.
intransitive
To move one's hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.
intransitive
To have an undulating or wavy form.
transitive
To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.
transitive
To style (the hair) so as to produce a wavy texture.
noun
A moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.
A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.
A loose back-and-forth movement, as of the hands.
figurative
A sudden, but temporary, uptick in something.
usually "the wave"
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.
figurative
A movement or trend in popular culture.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Move or swing back and forth
Used this way, wave is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- brandish , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The property of matter and electromagnetic radiation that is characterized by the fact that some properties can be explained best by wave theory and others by particle theory.
The shape of a wave illustrated graphically by plotting the values of the period quantity against time.
The theory that light is transmitted as waves.
The theory that light is transmitted as waves.
A succession of waves spaced at regular intervals.
The reciprocal of the wavelength of a wave.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The distance (measured in the direction of propagation) between two points in the same phase in consecutive cycles of a wave.
The shape of a wave illustrated graphically by plotting the values of the period quantity against time.
A small wave on the surface of a liquid.
An imaginary surface joining all points in space that are reached at the same instant by a wave propagating through a medium.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Use This Word
See how this word sounds in a real sentence.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Knowing “wave” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.
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.