wax.
Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
Meaning & usage
Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
Beeswax (a wax secreted by bees).
Earwax (a wax secreted by the ears).
What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?
Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
The phonograph record format for music.
A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.
Any of a class of drugs with weed oil and butane as main ingredients; hash oil.
He was charged with two felonies, for possession of Xanax and wax.
Where this word comes from
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”), German Low German Wass (“wax”), Luxembourgish Wuess (“wax”), Vilamovian wāhs (“wax”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voks (“wax”), Faroese vaks (“wax”), Icelandic, Swedish vax (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).
Made of wax.
Where this word comes from
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”), German Low German Wass (“wax”), Luxembourgish Wuess (“wax”), Vilamovian wāhs (“wax”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voks (“wax”), Faroese vaks (“wax”), Icelandic, Swedish vax (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).
To coat with wax or a similar material.
waxed silk
To form a wax (a thick maple syrup).
Where this word comes from
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”), German Low German Wass (“wax”), Luxembourgish Wuess (“wax”), Vilamovian wāhs (“wax”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voks (“wax”), Faroese vaks (“wax”), Icelandic, Swedish vax (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”).
To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
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.
To defeat utterly.
To kill, especially to murder a person.
To record.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English waxen, from the noun (see above).
To greaten.
To increasingly assume the specified characteristic.
to wax poetic
to wax wode
To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
To move from low tide to high tide.
Where this word comes from
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.
The process of growing.
Where this word comes from
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.
An outburst of anger, a loss of temper, a fit of rage.
Where this word comes from
Uncertain; probably from phrases like to wax angry, wax wode, and similar (see Etymology 2, above).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.