wax

• enPR: wăks, IPA^(key): /wæks/
• (obsolete, nonstandard) enPR: wĕks, IPA^(key): /wɛks/^[1]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æks
• Homophones: whacks; wacks (wine–whine merger)

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”), Norwegian voks (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).

wax (countable and uncountable, plural waxes)

1. Beeswax.
2. Earwax.

   Synonym: (medical term) cerumen

   What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?

3. Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
4. Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.

   Synonym: polish

6. (uncountable, music, informal) The phonograph record format for music.

   Synonyms: vinyl, record

   • 1943, Time:

     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.

7. (US, dialect) A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.
8. (US, slang) A type of drugs with as main ingredients weed oil and butane; hash oil.

wax (not comparable)

1. Made of wax.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     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.

• waxen

See under the noun section above

wax (third-person singular simple present waxes, present participle waxing, simple past and past participle waxed)

1. (transitive) To coat with wax or a similar material.

   waxed silk

From Middle English waxen, from the noun (see above).

wax (third-person singular simple present waxes, present participle waxing, simple past and past participle waxed)

1. (transitive) To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.

   Synonyms: buff, shine, polish, furbish, burnish

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.

   Synonyms: bump off, knock off, whack; see also Thesaurus:kill

   • 2005, David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, page 83:

     "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, Ed Gorman, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of Night, →ISBN, page 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]

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 *h₂weg- (“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.

wax (third-person singular simple present waxes, present participle waxing, simple past waxed or (archaic) wex or (obsolete) wox, past participle waxed or (dialectal, archaic) waxen)

1. (intransitive, literary) To greaten.

   Antonym: wane

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
     And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
     A merrier hour was never wasted there.

   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 155:

     For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
     In thews and bulks, but, as this temple waxes, <be> The inward service of the mind and soul
     Grows wide withal.

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:

     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, copulative, literary) To increasingly assume the specified characteristic.

   Synonym: become

   to wax poetic ― to become increasingly verbose

   to wax wode ― to become angry

   to wax eloquent

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     Ah, ſirrah, by my ſay, it waxes late:
     I’ll to my reſt.

   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 257:

     He waxes desperate with imagination.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 5:27:

     As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume 2, London: Millar, →OCLC, page 289:

     You behold, Sir, how he waxeth Wroth at your Abode here.

   • 1885, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 5, in 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.

   • 1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie:

     In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

4. (intransitive, of the moon) To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
5. (intransitive, of the tide) To move from low tide to high tide.

• Older forms are: 2nd per. sing, waxest (archaic), 3rd per. sing. waxeth (archaic), and plural form waxen (obsolete).
• Alternative simple past form is wex (obsolete) and the alternative past participle is waxen (obsolete).

wax (uncountable)

1. (rare) The process of growing.

• wax-kernel
• waxless

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

wax (plural waxes)

1. (dated, colloquial) An outburst of anger, a loss of temper, a fit of rage.
   • 1914, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , Chapter 1:

     father Arnall's face looked very black but he was not in a wax: he was laughing.

   • 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 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!’

• waxy

• waxen-kernel
• waxloke

wax

1. the next day

• Robertson, David Douglas. “Walkie-Talkie, Or, More New Lower Chinookan Etymologies.” Chinook Jargon, 30 Mar. 2018. Accessed 1 Apr. 2023.

From Old English weax, from Proto-West Germanic *wahs, from Proto-Germanic *wahsą.

• vax, vex, waxe, waxs, wex, wexe, wexs

• IPA^(key): /waks/, /wɛks/

wax (plural waxes)

2. wax (beeswax, sealing wax, etc.)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “Here Bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunt́burẏ”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published [c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 10, verso:

     This [Par]doner / hadde heer / as yelow as wex / But smothe it heeng as dooth a stryke of flex […]

     This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, / but it hung smoothly like a bushel of flax […]

• grene wax
• medewax
• waxen (“to wax”)

• English: wax
• Scots: wax

• “wax, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

A back-formation from waxen (“to grow”).

• IPA^(key): /waks/

wax (uncountable)

2. (rare) growth, increase

• English: wax

• “wax, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

wax

1. Alternative form of waxen (“to grow”)

wax

1. Alternative form of waxen (“to wax”)

wax

1. crazy
2. rabid

• waxo'k (“go crazy”, verb)

• Ch'ina tusleb' aatin q'eqchi'-kaxlan aatin ut kaxlan aatin-q'eqchi' (Guatemala, 1998) [2]

wax ?

1. something