Waxed

How to spell waxed

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce waxed

What does waxed mean?

1. verbCoated, polished, or treated something with wax in the past.
2. verbGrew or increased, especially of the moon appearing progressively fuller.
3. verbBecame or grew into a particular mood or manner of speaking.

Waxed in a sentence

• He waxed the wooden floor until it gleamed.

• The moon waxed steadily toward the full phase.

• The speaker waxed lyrical about his childhood home.

• The barber waxed his moustache into a neat curl.

• His confidence waxed as the project succeeded.

• She waxed sentimental when the old song played.

Where does waxed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'wax', which actually combines two separate Old English words that happen to share a spelling. The first is the noun 'weax', meaning the natural beeswax that bees build their combs from, a word shared across the Germanic languages and the source of the modern sense of polishing or coating something. The second is the verb 'weaxan', meaning 'to grow' or 'to increase', a completely distinct word that survives mainly in describing the moon growing fuller (waxing) and in the slightly formal sense of someone growing eloquent. Both words trace back to Germanic roots that English has carried since its earliest written records, well before the Norman Conquest. The single silent-free spelling 'waxed' keeps the simple Old English root intact, so the only real trap is remembering it ends in '-xed' rather than the phonetic-looking 'wackst'.

How the word is built

• wax (Old English weax: beeswax; also weaxan: to grow)
• -ed (past tense suffix)