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wax

UK/waks/ US/wæks/ fairly common informal literary slang us
noun (1) verb (3)

noun

1.

any of various substances of either mineral origin or plant or animal origin; they are solid at normal temperatures and insoluble in water

verb

1.

cover with wax

  • “wax the car”
2.

go up or advance

  • “Sales were climbing after prices were lowered”
Synonyms
Antonyms
3.

increase in phase

  • “the moon is waxing”
Synonyms
Antonyms

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • wax down
  • wax on
  • wax someone's tail
  • wax the dolphin
  • wax up

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.