Waved

How to spell waved

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce waved

What does waved mean?

1. verbMoved the hand or an object back and forth, especially as a greeting or signal.
2. verbFormed into gentle curves or curls, as with hair.

Waved in a sentence

• She waved at her neighbour from across the busy street.

• Her stylist waved the front sections for the wedding photos.

• The marshal waved the cars through the open gate.

• The humidity left his hair softly waved by midday.

Where does waved come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'wave', which descends from the Old English wafian, meaning 'to move the hands to and fro' or 'to fluctuate'. That verb was related to wæfre, an adjective meaning 'restless' or 'wavering', and the whole family carries the sense of something swaying or oscillating. Over the centuries the word came to cover both the literal swell of water and the back-and-forth motion of a greeting hand, as well as the rippling shape of curled hair. It shares a Germanic root with 'waver', which still means to hesitate or sway. The spelling trap is purely aural: 'waved' sounds identical to 'waived' (to give up a right or charge), yet the two have entirely separate origins, so the ai of the legal word must never creep into this everyday motion word.

How the word is built

• wave (from Old English wafian: to move to and fro)
• -ed (past tense)