Wax
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wax¹
- /waks/ UK
- /wæks/ Australia, US
- /wɛks/ New Zealand
- /wɛks/ nonstandard, obsolete
Sounds like whacks, wacks (wine–whine merger) · Rhymes with -æks
Where it comes from
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”).
noun waxes
- Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
- Beeswax (a wax secreted by bees).
- Earwax (a wax secreted by the ears). What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?
- Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
- The phonograph record format for music. 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.
- A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.
- Any of a class of drugs with weed oil and butane as main ingredients; hash oil. He was charged with two felonies, for possession of Xanax and wax.
adjective
- 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 f
verb waxes · waxing · waxed
- To coat with wax or a similar material. waxed silk
- To form a wax (a thick maple syrup). The syrup is waxing. Come and help yourselves.
wax²
- /waks/ UK
- /wæks/ Australia, US
- /wɛks/ New Zealand
- /wɛks/ nonstandard, obsolete
Sounds like whacks, wacks (wine–whine merger) · Rhymes with -æks
Where it comes from
From Middle English waxen, from the noun (see above).
verb waxes · waxing · waxed
- To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
- 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.
- To defeat utterly.
- To kill, especially to murder a person. "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....
- To record.
wax³
- /waks/ UK
- /wæks/ Australia, US
- /wɛks/ New Zealand
- /wɛks/ nonstandard, obsolete
Sounds like whacks, wacks (wine–whine merger) · Rhymes with -æks
Where it comes from
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.
verb waxes · waxing · waxed · wex · wox
- To greaten. Holonym: wax and wane
- To increasingly assume the specified characteristic. Near-synonyms: become, get, go, turn, come, fall, grow
- To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
- To move from low tide to high tide.
noun
- The process of growing.
wax⁴
- /waks/ UK
- /wæks/ Australia, US
- /wɛks/ New Zealand
- /wɛks/ nonstandard, obsolete
Sounds like whacks, wacks (wine–whine merger) · Rhymes with -æks
Where it comes from
Uncertain; probably from phrases like to wax angry, wax wode, and similar (see Etymology 2, above).
noun waxes
- 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.
Wax⁵
Where it comes from
* As a German and Jewish surname, variant of Wachs.
* As an English surname, from the noun wax, compare Waxman.
proper noun Waxes
- A surname.
