Wax

Pronunciation

• enPR: wăks, IPA: /wæks/
• Rhymes: -æks
• Homophones: whacks in accents with the wine-whine merger

From Old English wæx, from Proto-Germanic *wahsą, from Proto-Indo-European *wokso-. Cognate with Dutch was, German Wachs, Norwegian voks; and with Lithuanian vaškas, Russian воск

Full definition of wax

Noun

1. Beeswax.
2. Earwax.
   What rôle does the wax in your earhole fulfill?
3. Any oily, water-resistant substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
4. Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
5. A phonograph record.
6. (US, dialect) A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.

Synonyms

• (beeswax) beeswax
• (earwax) cerumen medical term, earwax
• (polish) polish
• (phonograph record) disc/disk, record

Derived terms

Adjective

1. Made of wax.
• 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 10, 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

• waxen

Derived terms

Verb

1. (transitive) To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
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.
• 2005, David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, "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 and Ed Gorman, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of Night, ISBN 9780553593334, p. 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

Synonyms

• (apply wax to) polish
• (to make smooth and shiny by rubbing) buff, shine, polish, furbish, burnish
• (kill (slang)) bump off, knock off, whack

Derived terms

From Middle English waxen, from Old English weaxan ("to wax, grow, be fruitful, increase, become powerful, flourish"), from Proto-Germanic *wahsijaną ("to grow"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weg-, *weks-, *aweks-, *auks- ("to grow, increase"). Cognate with Scots wax ("to grow"), West Frisian waakse ("to grow"), Low German wassen, Dutch wassen ("to grow"), German wachsen ("to grow"), Danish and Norwegian vokse ("to grow"), Swedish växa ("to grow"), Icelandic vaxa ("to grow"), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌷𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wahsjan, "to grow"); and with Ancient Greek ἀέξειν, Latin auxilium. It is in its turn cognate with augeo. See eke.

Verb

1. (intransitive, with adjective) To increasingly assume the specified characteristic, become.
   to wax lyrical;  to wax eloquent;  to ''wax wode
• 1885, H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines, The stars grew pale and paler still till at last they vanished ; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face.
2. (intransitive, literary) To grow.
• 1602, William Shakespeare, , act 1, sc. 3, lines 11-14,For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
  In thews and bulks, but, as this temple waxes,
  The inward service of the mind and soul
  Grows wide withal.
• 1922, Michael Arlen, “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days Chapter Ep./1/1, And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, ….
3. (intransitive, of the moon) To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.

Usage notes

Older forms are: 2nd per. sing, waxest (archaic), 3rd per. sing. waxeth (archaic), and plural form wexen (obsolete).

Alternative simple past form is wex (obsolete) and the alternative past participle is waxen (obsolete).

Synonyms

• (to assume specified characteristic) become

Antonyms

• (grow) wane
• (of the moon) wane

Derived terms

Related terms

Noun

1. (rare) The process of growing.

Derived terms

• wax-kernel
• waxless

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

Noun

1. (dated, colloquial) An outburst of anger.
• 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York 2007, p. 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

• waxy