wave

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

v. wag, shake, sway, flutter, stream (in the wind); signal, motion, gesture, indication; roll, undulate; ripple, swell, billow, flood, surge; flaunt, flourish. —n. sea, tide, water, ripple, billow, etc., wavelet, undulation; signal, gesture, flourish; convolution, curl; marcel, permanent, finger wave. See oscillation, fashion.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [A wall of water]

Syn. comber, swell, roller, heave, tidal wave, billow, tide, surge, crest, bore, tube, breaker, whitecap, ripple, curl*.

2. [A movement suggestive of a wave]

Syn. surge, gush, swell, uprising, onslaught, influx, tide, flow, stream, come and go, swarm, drift, rush, crush, line after line, fluctuation.

3. [UnduLating movement]

Syn. rocking, bending, winding, coil, curl, roll, twirl, loop, swirl, swing, sway, corkscrew, spring, lift, rippling.

4. [A line suggestive of a wave]

Syn. scroll, kink, convolution, meander, loop, wavy line, twist, volute, curlicue.

Syn.- wave is the general word for a curving ridge or swell in the surface of the ocean or other body of water; ripple is used of the smallest kind of wave, such as that caused by a breeze ruffling the surface of water; roller is applied to any of the large, heavy, swelling waves that roll in to the shore, as during a storm; breaker is applied to such a wave when it breaks, or is about to break, into foam upon the shore or upon rocks; billow is a somewhat poetic or rhetorical term for a great, heaving ocean wave v.

1. [To flutter]

Syn. stream, pulse, flow, shake, fly, dance, flap, swish, swing, tremble, whirl.

Ant. droop, fall*, hang listless.

2. [To give an alternating movement]

Syn. motion, beckon, call, raise the arm, signal, greet, return a greeting, hail.

3. [To move back and forth]

Syn. falter, waver, oscillate, vacillate, fluctuate, pulsate, vibrate, wag, waggle, sway, lurch, bend, swing, dangle, seesaw, wobble, reel, quaver, quiver, swing from side to side, palpitate, move to and fro; see also rock .

4. [To undulate]

Syn. surge, roll, flow, wind, swell, billow, curl, twirl, swirl, coil, ripple, twist.

5. [To set hair]

Syn. put up, curl, set, permanent, pin up, roll up.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus)

I

n.

1. surge or swell surf, breaker, comber, plunger, spiller, bore, eagre, white-cap, billow, undulation, ripple, ridge.

WORD FIND

• abnormally large wave in a train of smaller ones: rogue wave

• concave-backed wave found offshore: spiller

• convex-backed wave, common beach: plunger

• frothy, gray-crested waves: graybeards

• giant, formerly called tidal wave: tsunami

• high dangerous wave caused by tidal surge: bore, eagre

• high point: crest

• hollow between: trough

• marine vegetation washed ashore by: wrack

• mounds of sand left by waves breaking at right angles: cusps

• ripples in sand left by receding waves: swashmarks

• roughness at sea: chop

• series of: train

• shallow sweep up a beach: swash, backwash

• sound: lapping, crashing, booming, white noise, hiss

• spray: spindrift

• structure erected to prevent wave erosion: jetty, groin

• tiny: wavelet

• towering crests formed by opposing waves colliding: cross seas

• upward heaving of ship caused by wave: scend

• wind shore receiving smaller waves, low: lee shore

• wind travel distance and its relationship to wave size: fetch

see beach, ocean

2. upsurge surge, rise, rash, flood, deluge, explosion, groundswell.

3. curl curve, roll, twist.

II

v.

1. undulate swing, sway, oscillate, ripple, flutter, flap, waggle, shake, move to and fro, move back and forth, rise and fall.

2. signal gesture, gesticulate, *flag down, acknowledge.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) verb 1. To move to and fro vigorously and usually repeatedly: switch, wag1, waggle. See REPETITION. 2. To move or cause to move about while being fixed at one edge: flap, flutter, fly. See REPETITION. 3. To move (one's arms or wings, for example) up and down: beat, flap, flitter, flop, flutter, waggle. See REPETITION. 4. To wield boldly and dramatically: brandish, flourish, sweep. See EXPRESS. 5. To have or cause to have a curved or sinuous form or surface: curl, curve, undulate. See STRAIGHT.