Wave, n.
1. An advancing ridge or swell on the surface of a liquid, as of the sea, resulting from the oscillatory motion of the particles composing it when disturbed by any force their position of rest; an undulation.
The wave behind impels the wave before. --Pope.
2. Physics A vibration propagated from particle to particle through a body or elastic medium, as in the transmission of sound; an assemblage of vibrating molecules in all phases of a vibration, with no phase repeated; a wave of vibration; an undulation. See Undulation.
3. Water; a body of water. [Poetic] “Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave.”
Build a ship to save thee from the flood,
I 'll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine. --Chapman.
4. Unevenness; inequality of surface.
5. A waving or undulating motion; a signal made with the hand, a flag, etc.
6. The undulating line or streak of luster on cloth watered, or calendered, or on damask steel.
7. Something resembling or likened to a water wave, as in rising unusually high, in being of unusual extent, or in progressive motion; a swelling or excitement, as of feeling or energy; a tide; flood; period of intensity, usual activity, or the like; as, a wave of enthusiasm; waves of applause.
Wave front Physics, the surface of initial displacement of the particles in a medium, as a wave of vibration advances.
Wave length Physics, the space, reckoned in the direction of propagation, occupied by a complete wave or undulation, as of light, sound, etc.; the distance from a point or phase in a wave to the nearest point at which the same phase occurs.
Wave line Shipbuilding, a line of a vessel's hull, shaped in accordance with the wave-line system.
Wave-line system, Wave-line theory Shipbuilding, a system or theory of designing the lines of a vessel, which takes into consideration the length and shape of a wave which travels at a certain speed.
Wave loaf, a loaf for a wave offering. --Lev. viii. 27.
Wave moth Zool., any one of numerous species of small geometrid moths belonging to Acidalia and allied genera; -- so called from the wavelike color markings on the wings.
Wave offering, an offering made in the Jewish services by waving the object, as a loaf of bread, toward the four cardinal points. --Num. xviii. 11.
Wave of vibration Physics, a wave which consists in, or is occasioned by, the production and transmission of a vibratory state from particle to particle through a body.
Wave surface. (a) Physics A surface of simultaneous and equal displacement of the particles composing a wave of vibration. (b) Geom. A mathematical surface of the fourth order which, upon certain hypotheses, is the locus of a wave surface of light in the interior of crystals. It is used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction. See under Refraction.
Wave theory. Physics See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.
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