waves
plural of “wave” — one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)
An inflected form of wave · plural.
How often you will meet it
Rank 2,025 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 8,890 times across 173,643 chapters — 0.004% of every word in the library.
What it means
noun
- one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water) also: moving ridge
- a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon a wave of settlerstroops advancing in waves
- (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth also: undulation
- something that rises rapidly a wave of emotion swept over himthere was a sudden wave of buying before the market closed
- the act of signaling by a movement of the hand also: waving, wafture
- a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair
waves in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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For twenty minutes the car glided along not more than two hundred feet above the waves.
The Land of the Changing Sun · Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben · Chapter 1
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What hints of pitiless power and terror spoke In waves that on their iron coast-line broke?
Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other poems Part 6 From — Volume I · John Greenleaf Whittier · Chapter 1
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His great blue misty hills washed their turbulent waves to the yellow shore of the dropping sun.
The Heart of the Hills · John, Jr. Fox · Chapter 1
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The streams increase; love's waves my bark do fill; Thus are they wracked that guide their course by will.
Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Phillis - Licia · Martha Foote [Editor] Crow · Chapter 1
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No thrill transmitted stirred the lock Of jack-straw needle-ice at base; Towers undermined by waves—the block Atilt impending—kept their place.
John Marr and Other Poems · Herman Melville · Chapter 1