Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use waver in a sentence

38 example sentences · verb, noun

Waver means to swing or wave, especially in the air, wind, etc.; to flutter. Example: “Flowers wavered in the breeze.”

Examples of waver by meaning

verbTo swing or wave, especially in the air, wind, etc.; to flutter.

  • Flowers wavered in the breeze.

verbTo move without purpose or a specified destination; to roam, to wander.

  • Michael watched him down the corridor, saw him waver into the dusky street.1924 October, John Galsworthy, “Bicket”, in The White Monkey, London: William Heinemann, published November 1924, →OCLC, part I, page 61

verbTo begin to weaken or show signs of weakening in resolve; to falter, to flinch, to give way.

  • Despite all the terrible things that happened to her, she never wavered from her beliefs.
  • Javik: Do not waver.2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3: From Ashes, Redwood City, Calif.: Electronic Arts, P.C., scene: Earth (Priority: Earth)
  • Although they believe they can overhaul their 2–0 deficit, they cannot afford to be as lethargic as this at Camp Nou, and the time is surely approaching when Manuel Pellegrini's faith in Martín Demichelis wavers.2014 March 9, Jacob Steinberg, “Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The...

verbOf a body part such as an eye or hand, or the voice: to become unsteady; to shake, to tremble.

  • His voice wavered when the reporter brought up the controversial topic.

nounAn act of moving back and forth, swinging, or waving; a flutter, a tremble.

  • By turns she sat watching the waver of the candles in the draught, and walked to and fro between the bed and the washhand-stand to keep herself warm.1902, Leonard Merrick, chapter IV, in When Love Flies out o’ the Window, London: C[yril] Arthur Pearson […], →OCLC, page 51

nounOne who waves their arms, or causes something to swing or wave.

  • I felt encouraged by all the enthusiastic wavers in the crowd.
  • The Fourth of July brings out all the flag wavers.
  • Johnny is such a little waver; everyone who passes by receives his preferred greeting.

More sentences with waver

  • He hates the wavering uncertainty in his voice, the tremulousness of it.2020, Brandon Taylor, Real Life, Daunt Books Originals, page 250. From the entry tremulousness
  • In the last week, perhaps for the first time in Arteta’s 10-month reign, that belief wavered.2020 November 1, James McNicholas, “Arteta and Arsenal once again show the value of belief”, in The Athletic, New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry oh, ye of little faith
  • I could not bewish that the stars and stripes were wavering from its top.2006, Robert Julyan, The Mountains of New Mexico - Page 130. From the entry bewish
  • To their credit, they never wavered and for that alone no one could begrudge them the points.2000 March 12, Stuart Barnes, “Swindon stunner for Curbishley”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry to one's credit
  • Gilchrist explained, more sing-songy because they were sung in a wavering voice.1996, John M Coggeshall, Carolina Piedmont country. From the entry sing-songy
  • She smiled, an enigma in the wavering light of our candleshade.1987, Donald Stanwood, The Seventh Royale: A Novel. From the entry candleshade
  • "Has it?" said Arthur, his eyes not wavering for a moment.1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 16. From the entry occular
  • This variation is evidence of a wavering of the theme between polymorphemic and monomorphemic status.1976, Margaret Langdon, Shirley Silver, Hokan studies: papers from the First Conference on Hokan Languages held in San Diego, California…. From the entry morphemization
  • Any hesitation or wavering, any false step, any sign of self-doubt, could have been disastrous.1971, Lyndon Johnson, “"I feel like I have already been here a year"”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN…. From the entry self-doubt
  • Twilight deepened, and a flicker of star-shells wavered in the sky beyond Béthune.1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 260. From the entry star shell
  • He wavered on his feet from adrenaline aftershock, blood loss, and from the fact that he was ruined.2013, Kris Schnee, Everyone's Island, →ISBN, page 119. From the entry aftershock
  • A woman asmear with blood stood up, fell softly down, stood slowly up again, wavering like a little flag.1995, William Gass, The Tunnel, New York: Knopf, page 232. From the entry asmear
  • The local people, seeing our departure, could not help wavering.1972, Chang Kuo-t’ao, “The Soviet Region in Northern Szechwan”, in The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party 1928–1938, volume 2, Lawrence…. From the entry at sixes and sevens
  • A reflection in which things wavered and vanished, waterily.1927, Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse. From the entry waterily
  • Caroline visibly wavered for a second or two, much as a roulette ball might coyly hover between two numbers.1926, Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. From the entry red herring
  • I shuddered and wavered like a fountain in the wind.1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company…. From the entry thistledown
  • Sirgood, the mother-in-law of the wavering wife.1905 May 1, The Keeper of the Review Bookshop [pseudonym], “The Review’s Bookshop”, in W[illiam] T[homas] Stead, editor, The Review of…. From the entry irritatingness
  • Other erstwhile stalwarts are also wavering.2017 October 14, Paul Doyle, “Mauricio Pellegrino yet to find attacking solution for stuttering Southampton”, in the Guardian. From the entry outing
  • A judicious distuning, applied to piano tone, has the effect of introducing a wavering quality which the ear interprets as a pleasing liveliness of tone.1990, Robin Maconie, chapter 12, in The Concept of Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 105. From the entry distune
  • The black eyes wavered and fell, their owner covering her retreat with another giggle and toss of her short braid of hair.1923, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “Chapter 8”, in Emily of New Moon. From the entry cow
  • Stars wavered and wimpled in the black waters of the Hudson as a launch put out in silence from the foot of Twenty-seventh Street.1920, George Allan England, The Flying Legion. From the entry wimple
  • He drew melancholy comparisons from Nature: men were compared to wandering clouds that dissolve into nothing, to wavering shadows, and shipwrecked beings, etc.1905, Alfred Biese, The Development of the Feeling for Nature In the Middle Ages and Modern Times, page 34. From the entry hexameron
  • Its wavering lines and misslanted letters, its blots and omissions, no less than its successes, were there to warn and guide your future efforts.1902 November, “With The Editor”, in Youth: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls, volume 2, number 1, page 40. From the entry misslanted
  • And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.2025 November 5, Zohran Mamdani, “The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Speech”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry antisemitism
  • If the fixation is wavering, especially when receiving the horizontal afterimage with the centroscope a thin pointer is used by the child to touch the fixation spot.1966, American Orthoptic Journal - Volumes 16-20, page 35. From the entry afterimage
  • It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC. From the entry irredeemable
  • Her lips wavered into a smile—she had been distracted by the whimsical remembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two years earlier, in that very room.1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC. From the entry whimsical
  • I sprang back, giving utterance to a cry, which brought Watkins to me, and the two of us stared at the grewsome object and then about into the wavering shadows.1918, Randall Parrish, Wolves of the Sea. From the entry grewsome

Meaning of waver

  1. verb To swing or wave, especially in the air, wind, etc.; to flutter.
  2. verb To move without purpose or a specified destination; to roam, to wander.
  3. verb To sway back and forth, as if about to fall; to reel, to stagger, to totter.

Full definition of waver

Questions about waver in a sentence

How do you use waver in a sentence?
Waver is used as a verb and noun. For example: “Flowers wavered in the breeze.”
What is a short sentence with waver?
“Javik: Do not waver.”
What does waver mean?
Waver means to swing or wave, especially in the air, wind, etc.; to flutter.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waver (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.

Last updated:

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