Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use wave in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Wave means to move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely. Example: “The flag waved in the gentle breeze.”

Examples of wave by meaning

verbTo move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.

  • The flag waved in the gentle breeze.

verbTo move one's hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.

  • I waved goodbye.1978, Richard Nixon, RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 1090

verbTo call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to...

  • I waved goodbye from across the room.

verbTo swing and miss at a pitch.

  • Jones waves at strike one.

verbTo cause to move back and forth repeatedly.

  • The starter waved the flag to begin the race.
  • His father has waved bills in front of face and said to him — see what you've cost me.1977 August 13, Pala Bennett, Mary Jo Risher, “"I'm A Mother, And I'm A Good One."”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 6, page 9

verbTo move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.

  • Walking through the fields, where the maize was now waving over his head, pale gold with a froth of white, the sharp dead leaves scything crisply against the wind, he could see nothing but that black foetid hut1951, Doris Lessing, “The Second Hut”, in African Stories, published 2014, page 82
  • A chill waved over my consciousness as my worst nightmare erupted into reality.1997, Elizabeth Barrett, Victoria Bovard, And His Love Shown Down, page 88
  • The two stood in the window peering down where parents moved across grass, pointing tongues of colour waving over them.2015, Arthur Calder-Marshall, About Levy

nounA moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.

  • The wave traveled from the center of the lake before breaking on the shore.
  • A wave simulator in the tank can re-enact tsunamis and northeasters, and imitate wave conditions from midocean.2007 February 20, Tina Kelley, “A Wet Wind Tunnel So Ships Can Move Faster and Better”, in The New York Times, archived from the original...
  • The new sea wall may stop the waves from the sea, but not from the children who enthusiastically greet our train as it passes.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 65

nounA moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.

  • Gravity waves, while predicted by theory for decades, have been notoriously difficult to detect.
  • One idea is to use the new materials to build "superantennas" that can concentrate light and other electromagnetic waves to make laser-like beams.2010 March 18, Ian Sample, “Cloaking device makes objects invisible – to infrared light anyway”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian...

More sentences with wave

  • She stood at the exit of the house looking back and waving at those inside.From the entry exit
  • It's somewhat ironic to have a wave of smog right on Earth Day.From the entry ironic
  • Many radar systems use a combination of radio waves and microwaves.From the entry microwave
  • The small boat broached and nearly sank, because of the large waves.From the entry broach
  • Don’t wave that pencil in my face—do you want to blind me?From the entry blind
  • The water coming out of the waterwheel created a standing wave in the channel.From the entry channel
  • Seeing food at camp similar to his mother's cooking sent a wave of nostalgia through him.From the entry nostalgia
  • The last tidal wave here killed twenty and left thousands homeless.From the entry tidal wave
  • As the doors opened, a tidal wave of people flooded into the room.From the entry tidal wave
  • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.From the entry trough
  • The sales pitch sounded good, but there was a lot of hand waving about the price.From the entry hand waving
  • Correlated waves interfere to produce interesting patterns, while uncorrelated waves overlap without interfering.From the entry interfere
  • The bees murmured in the forest. The waves murmured on the shore.From the entry murmur
  • The child watched as his footsteps in the sand were washed away by the waves.From the entry footstep
  • In a radio transmitter you modulate the carrier wave; in the receiver you demodulate it.From the entry demodulate
  • They were having this contest for grommets. The waves were micro. Even the groms were disgusted.From the entry grom
  • The setting sunlight played through the gently waving branches, creating subtly nuanced transitions of color and tone.From the entry nuanced
  • I managed to drive the vultures away by shouting and waving my arms about.From the entry drive away
  • The stormtossed ocean waves beat against the side of the ship and washed over its deck.From the entry stormtossed
  • Last summer, Georgia was hit by the mightiest heat wave in living memory.From the entry in living memory
  • The attention and praise come in waves for the pop star.From the entry in waves
  • The wave knocked me off my feet.From the entry foot
  • Background EEG demonstrates an admixture of theta and delta waves.From the entry admixture
  • The small boat raced over the backs of the waves.From the entry back
  • They dismissed the meeting with a wave of their hand.From the entry with
  • The violence of the waves was spent.From the entry spend

Meaning of wave

  1. verb To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.
  2. verb To move one's hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.
  3. verb To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate.

Full definition of wave

Questions about wave in a sentence

How do you use wave in a sentence?
Wave is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The flag waved in the gentle breeze.”
What is a short sentence with wave?
“I waved goodbye.”
What does wave mean?
Wave means to move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wave (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use wave in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.