Other forms: waves, waved, waving
A wave is the moving ridge of water that lifts you off your feet at the beach and puts you down again. You stand where the sea comes to your waist, watch them arrive in sets, count to the seventh and jump. Further out, the same waves are what the surfers are sitting and waiting for.
Wave is also what your hand does: you wave from the platform, wave goodbye, wave a flag, wave the waiter over. Anything arriving all at once takes the word — a heat wave, a wave of flu through the school, a wave of tourists off one ship. Physics uses it for the way light and sound travel, which is where radio waves and the microwave come from. Mind the spelling, because waive sounds identical and is a different word: to waive a fee is to give up the right to charge it. And make waves means to cause trouble on purpose, while waving goodbye to something means losing it for good.
1nounwaveA raised line of water moving across the surface of the sea.
“A wave broke over the wall and soaked the pavement.”
2verbhandTo move your hand from side to side in greeting, or to signal.
“She waved from the platform until the train had gone.”
3nounsurgeA sudden increase in something that spreads through a place.
“A wave of flu closed two of the schools.”
4nounphysicsIn physics, the way energy travels — light, sound or radio — rising and falling as it goes.
“Radio waves pass straight through the walls.”
5nouncurlA gentle curve in the hair, looser than a curl.
“Her hair has a natural wave that shows when it rains.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Two different words fell together here. The hand-wave is Old English wafian — to wave, to fluctuate, to waver in the mind — on a root meaning to move to and fro, to wander. The wave in the sea came in beside it from Old English wǣg, a billow, a flood, the moving water itself, on a quite separate root meaning to drag or carry. English heard the two as one word, and now they are.
Proto-Indo-European
*webʰ- — to move to and from, wander
Proto-Germanic
*wabōną
Proto-West Germanic
*wabōn
Old English
wafian — to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder
Middle English
waven
English, today
wave
Built from
From Middle English waven, from Old English wafian (“to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder”), from Proto-West Germanic wabōn, from Proto-Germanic wabōną, wabjaną (“to wander, sway”), from Proto-Indo-European webʰ- (“to move to and from, wander”). Cognate with Middle High German waben (“to wave”), German wabern (“to waft”), Icelandic váfa (“to fluctuate, waver, doubt”). See also waver.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA