Wiktionary

wax

See also: Wax

English edit

WOTD – 3 April 2008

Pronunciation edit

Etymology 1 edit

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”), Norwegian voks (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).

 
Beeswax, a kind of wax

Noun edit

wax (countable and uncountable, plural waxes)

  1. Beeswax.
  2. Earwax.
    Synonym: (medical term) cerumen
    What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?
  3. Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
  4. Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
    Synonym: polish
  5. (uncountable, music, informal) The phonograph record format for music.
    Synonyms: vinyl, record
    • 1943, Time:
      What really started the corn sprouting on Broadway was a lugubrious tune by Louisiana's Jimmie Davis called It Makes No Difference Now. In the late '30s Decca's Recording Chief David Kapp heard this Texas hit and got it on wax.
  6. (US, dialect) A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.
  7. (US, slang) A type of drugs with as main ingredients weed oil and butane; hash oil.
Derived terms edit
Terms derived from wax (noun)
Translations edit
beeswax — see beeswax
earwax — see earwax

Adjective edit

wax (not comparable)

  1. Made of wax.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      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.
Synonyms edit
Derived terms edit

See under the noun section above

Translations edit

Etymology 2 edit

  This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!
Particularly: “defeat sense”

From Middle English waxen, from the noun (see above).

Verb edit

wax (third-person singular simple present waxes, present participle waxing, simple past and past participle waxed)

  1. (transitive) To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
    Synonyms: buff, shine, polish, furbish, burnish
  2. (transitive) To remove hair at the roots from (a part of the body) by coating the skin with a film of wax that is then pulled away sharply.
  3. (transitive, informal) To defeat utterly.
  4. (transitive, slang) To kill, especially to murder a person.
    Synonyms: bump off, knock off, whack; see also Thesaurus:kill
    • 2005, David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, page 83:
      "I was reassigned over from the 9th when the battalion CO got waxed on the road leading in." Ben kept his dismay to himself. Here was one more officer in the 90th who'd been on the job only hours or days, replacing commanders killed or wounded....
    • 2009, Dean R. Koontz, Ed Gorman, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of Night, →ISBN, page 106:
      "You telling me you know who really waxed him and your mom?"
      "Yeah," she lied.
      "Just who pulled the trigger or who ordered it to be pulled?"
  5. (transitive, archaic, usually of a musical or oral performance) To record. [from 1900]
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Etymology 3 edit

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 *h₂weg- (“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.

Verb edit

wax (third-person singular simple present waxes, present participle waxing, simple past waxed or (archaic) wex or (obsolete) wox, past participle waxed or (dialectal, archaic) waxen)

  1. (intransitive, literary) To greaten.
    Antonym: wane
  3. (intransitive, copulative, literary) To increasingly assume the specified characteristic.
    Synonym: become
    to wax poetic ― to become increasingly verbose
    to wax wode ― to become angry
    to wax eloquent
  4. (intransitive, of the moon) To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
  5. (intransitive, of the tide) To move from low tide to high tide.
Usage notes edit
Derived terms edit
terms derived from wax (verb) ("grow or become")
Related terms edit
terms related to wax (verb) ("grow, become")
Translations edit

Noun edit

wax (uncountable)

  1. (rare) The process of growing.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Etymology 4 edit

Uncertain; probably from phrases like to wax angry, wax wode, and similar (see Etymology 2, above).

Noun edit

wax (plural waxes)

  1. (dated, colloquial) An outburst of anger, a loss of temper, a fit of rage.
    • 1914, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , Chapter 1:
      father Arnall's face looked very black but he was not in a wax: he was laughing.
    • 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 161:
      ‘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!’
Derived terms edit

References edit

  1. ^ Bingham, Caleb (1808) “Improprieties in Pronunciation, common among the people of New-England”, in The Child's Companion; Being a Conciſe Spelling-book […] ‎[1], 12th edition, Boston: Manning & Loring, →OCLC, page 77.

See also edit

Chinook edit

Adverb edit

wax

  1. the next day

References edit

Middle English edit

Etymology 1 edit

From Old English weax, from Proto-West Germanic *wahs, from Proto-Germanic *wahsą.

Alternative forms edit

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

wax (plural waxes)

  2. wax (beeswax, sealing wax, etc.)
Related terms edit
Descendants edit
  • English: wax
  • Scots: wax
References edit

Etymology 2 edit

A back-formation from waxen (“to grow”).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

wax (uncountable)

  2. (rare) growth, increase
Descendants edit
References edit

Etymology 3 edit

Verb edit

wax

  1. Alternative form of waxen (“to grow”)

Etymology 4 edit

Verb edit

wax

  1. Alternative form of waxen (“to wax”)

Q'eqchi edit

Adjective edit

wax

  1. crazy
  2. rabid

Derived terms edit

Further reading edit

  • Ch'ina tusleb' aatin q'eqchi'-kaxlan aatin ut kaxlan aatin-q'eqchi' (Guatemala, 1998) [2]

Somali edit

Noun edit

wax ?

  1. something
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