wax
verb
- grow larger
- apply wax to a surface
- become
noun
- class of chemical compounds that are plastic (malleable) near ambient temperatures.
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /waks/ / /wæks/ / /wɛks/
adj
Etymology: From Middle English wax, from Old English weax, from Proto-Germanic *wahsą, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *woḱ-so-. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Woaks (“wax”), West Frisian waaks (“wax”), Dutch was (“wax”), German Wachs (“wax”), German Low German Wass (“wax”), Luxembourgish Wuess (“wax”), Vilamovian wāhs (“wax”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voks (“wax”), Faroese vaks (“wax”), Icelandic, Swedish vax (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).
- Made of wax.
“He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.”
name
Etymology: * As a German and Jewish surname, variant of Wachs. * As an English surname, from the noun wax, compare Waxman.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: Uncertain; probably from phrases like to wax angry, wax wode, and similar (see Etymology 2, above).
- An outburst of anger, a loss of temper, a fit of rage.
“father Arnall's face looked very black but he was not in a wax: he was laughing.”
“‘That's him to a T,’ she would murmur; or, ‘Just wait till he reads this’; or, ‘Ah, won't that put him in a wax!’”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English waxen, from Old English weaxan (“to wax, grow, be fruitful, increase, become powerful, flourish”), from Proto-West Germanic *wahsan, from Proto-Germanic *wahsijaną (“to grow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weks- (“to grow, increase”). Cognate with Scots wax (“to grow”), West Frisian waakse (“to greaten”), Low German wassen, Dutch wassen (“to greaten”), German wachsen (“to greaten”), Danish and Norwegian vokse (“to greaten”), Swedish växa (“to greaten”), Icelandic vaxa (“to greaten”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌷𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wahsjan, “to grow”); and with Ancient Greek ἀέξειν (aéxein), Latin auxilium. It is in its turn cognate with augeo. See eke.
- To greaten.
“Holonym: wax and wane”
“And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.”
- To increasingly assume the specified characteristic.
“Near-synonyms: become, get, go, turn, come, fall, grow”
“to wax poetic”
- To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
- To move from low tide to high tide.