wave

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To move freely back and forth or up and down in the air, as branches in the wind.
• intransitive verb To make a signal with an up-and-down or back-and-forth movement of the hand or an object held in the hand.
• intransitive verb To have an undulating or wavy form; curve or curl.
• intransitive verb To cause to move back and forth or up and down, either once or repeatedly.
• intransitive verb To move or swing as in giving a signal: synonym: flourish.
• intransitive verb To signal or express by waving the hand or an object held in the hand.
• intransitive verb To signal (a person) by using the hand to move in a specified direction.
• intransitive verb To arrange into curves, curls, or undulations.
• noun A ridge or swell moving through or along the surface of a large body of water.
• noun A small ridge or swell moving across the interface of two fluids and dependent on surface tension.
• noun The sea.
• noun Something that suggests the form and motion of a wave in the sea, especially.
• noun A moving curve or succession of curves in or on a surface; an undulation.
• noun A curve or succession of curves, as in the hair.
• noun A curved shape, outline, or pattern.
• noun A movement up and down or back and forth.
• noun A surge or rush, as of sensation.
• noun A sudden great rise, as in activity or intensity.
• noun A rising trend that involves large numbers of individuals.
• noun One of a succession of mass movements.
• noun A maneuver in which fans at a sports event simulate an ocean wave by rising quickly in sequence with arms upraised and then quickly sitting down again in a continuous rolling motion.
• noun A widespread, persistent meteorological condition, especially of temperature.
• noun A disturbance that travels through a medium. Energy is transferred by a wave from one region of the medium to another without causing any permanent displacement of the medium.
• noun A graphic representation of the variation of such a disturbance with time.
• noun A single cycle of a periodic wave.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To move up and down or to and fro; undulate; fluctuate; bend or sway back and forth; flutter.
• To have an undulating form or direction; curve alternately in opposite directions.
• To give a signal by a gesture of movement up and down or to and fro.
• To waver in mind; vacillate.
• To move to and fro; cause to shake, rock, or sway; brandish.
• Specifically To offer as a wave-offering. See wave-offering.
• To shape or dispose in undulations; cause to wind in and out, as a line in curves, or a surface in ridges and furrows.
• To decorate with a waving or winding pattern.
• To signal by a wave of the hand, or of a flag, a handkerchief, or the like; direct by a waving gesture or other movement, as in beckoning.
• To express, as a command, direction, farewell, etc., by a waving movement or gesture.
• To water, as silk. See water, v. t., 3.
• An obsolete preterit of weave.
• noun A manufacturers' name for a defect in articles of glass, consisting in a slightly protuberant ridge on the surface due to the glass having cooled irregularly and too much before blowing.
• noun A disturbance of the surface of a body in the form of a ridge and trough, propagated by forces tending to restore the surface to its figure of equilibrium, the particles not advancing with the wave.
• noun Water; a stream; the sea.
• noun A form assumed by parts of a body which are out of equilibrium, such that as fast as the particles return they are replaced by others moving into neighboring positions of stress, so that the whole disturbance is continually propagated into new parts of the body while preserving more or less perfectly the same shape and other characters.
• noun One of a series of curves in a waving line, or of ridges in a furrowed surface; an undulation; a swell.
• noun Figuratively, a flood, influx, or rush of anything, marked by unusual volume, extent, uprising. etc., and thus contrasted with preceding and following periods of the opposite character; something that swells like a sea-wave at recurring intervals; often, a period of intensity, activity, or important results: as, a wave of religious enthusiasm; waves of prosperity.
• noun Specifically In meteorology, a progressive oscillation of atmospheric pressure or temperature, or an advancing movement of large extent in which these are considerably above or below the normal: as, an air-wave, barometric wave, cold wave, warm wave, etc.