Word.ws English Dictionary

wane

UK/weɪn/

wane noun: a gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.

wane: a gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc
Image: Ruhrfisch, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

wane (plural wanes)

  1. A gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.
    • In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o’clock, meridian—his dinner hour—it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing—but, as it were, with a gradual wane—till six o’clock, P.M., or thereabouts; […].1853, Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, in The Piazza Tales, New York: Dix, Edwards & Co, published 1856
    • His influence which was on the wane during the reign of Joseph II grew still less during the reign of Leopold II (1790-2).1913, Michael Ott, The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Wenzel Anton Kaunitz"
    Synonyms:
    decrease, decline
  2. The lunar phase during which the sun seems to illuminate less of the moon as its sunlit area becomes progressively smaller as visible from Earth.
    • Some French peasants also prefer to sow in the wane.1906, James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, volume 2, page 133
    • It was very dark, for although the sky was clear the moon was now well in the wane, and would not rise till the small hours.1926, H. P. Lovecraft, The Moon-Bog
  3. (literary) The end of a period.
    • The day was in its prime, the day was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on.1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
    • The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of the eighteenth century had become extremely critical.1845, Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or The Two Nations, Book 1, Chapter 3
  4. A rounded corner caused by lack of wood, often showing bark.
    • Sapwood, or even bark, may appear on the corners, or may have been cut off, resulting in wane, or missing timber.2002, Peter Ross, Appraisal and Repair of Timber Structures, p. 11

Verb

wane (third-person singular simple present wanes, present participle waning, simple past and past participle waned)

  1. (intransitive) To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.
    • You saw but sorrow in its waning form.1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
    • Land and trade ever will wax and wane together.1668, Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade
  2. (intransitive) For light to dim or diminish in strength.
    • The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast; / It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.1894, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Nympholept
  3. (intransitive) For the Moon to pass through the phases of its monthly cycle where its surface is less and less visible.
    • The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot after another, as the moon wanes.1866, Sabine Baring-Gould, “The Man in the Moon”, in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
  4. (intransitive) Said of a time period that comes to an end.
    • Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems//Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams1889, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Swimmer's Dream
  5. (archaic, intransitive) To decrease physically in size, amount, numbers or surface.
    • The snow which had been for some time waning, had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter XIX, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees...
    • Denisovans had little genetic diversity, suggesting that their small population waned further as populations of modern humans expanded.2012 August 30, Ann Gibbons, “Genome Brings Ancient Girl to Life”, in Science Now, retrieved 04 Sep 2012
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To cause to decrease.
    • In which no lustful finger can profane him,
      Nor any earth with black eclipses wane him1610, Ben Jonson, The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers
    • Proud once and princely was the mansion, ere a succession of spendthrifts waned away its splendour.1797, Anna Seward, Letter to Mrs Childers of Yorkshire

Noun (2)

wane (plural wanes)

  1. (Scotland, slang) A child.

Noun (3)

wane (plural wanes)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, obsolete) A house or dwelling.

wane meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada and Sanskrit

wane in Urdu

انحطاطی دور, کمی, اتار, گھٹنا, کم ہونا, زوال آنا

wane in Malayalam

തേയുക, ചുരുങ്ങുക, സ്വാധീനം കുറയുക, ക്ഷയിക്കുക

wane in Kannada

ಬಲಹೀನತೆ, ವೀರ್ಯಕ್ಷಯ, ಕಾಂತಿಹೀನತೆ, ಸೊರಗುವಿಕೆ, ಕೀರ್ತಿಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು, ನುರುಕು

wane in Sanskrit

wane, perishing, destruction, ruin
क्षिति kṣíti
to wane
क्षीयते kṣīyáte

Examples of wane in a sentence

  • I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 118”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers...
  • And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane[…]1902, John Masefield, The Golden City of St. Mary:
  • When your focus wanes and you feel the urge to online shop or grab a game of 2048, there are tech tools to prevent your giving in.2020 September 26, Caren Osten Gerszberg, “You Can Get Focused (Hint: Put Down That Phone)”, in The New York Times, archived from the...
  • His popularity, however, has waned, say analysts.2022 September 30, Rebecca Ratcliffe, “Anger after Thai court rules 2014 coup leader can carry on as PM”, in The Guardian, Guardian News &...

All 37 example sentences with wane

Synonyms of wane

Antonyms

Forms of wane

Noun
pluralwanes
alternative formwain
alternative formwaine
alternative formwean
alternative formwone
Verb
third-person singular presentwanes
present participlewaning
past participlewaned
pastwaned

Past tense of wane: waned

Plural of wane: wanes

Origin of wane

From Middle English wane, from Old English wana (“defect, shortage”), from Proto-West Germanic *wanō, from Proto-Germanic *wanô, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to leave, abandon; empty, deserted”). Cognates See also wan-, want, and waste. Compare also Dutch waan (“insanity”) and German Wahn (“insanity”) deprecated defect, Old Norse vanr (“lacking”) ( > Danish prefix van-, only found in compounds), Latin vanus, Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌽𐍃 (wans, “missing, lacking”), Albanian vonë (“late, futile, mentally retarded”), Armenian ունայն (unayn, “empty”), Old Saxon and Old High German wanon (“to decrease”), Modern Dutch weinig (“a few”), Modern German weniger (“less”), comparative of wenig (“few”) (-ig being a derivate suffix; -er the suffix of comparatives). Doublet of vain, vaunt, vaniloquent, vast, vacuum, vacant, vacate, which are Latin-derived, via the PIE root.

From Middle English wanen, wanien, from Old English wanian, wonian, from Proto-West Germanic *wanōn, from Proto-Germanic *wanōną.

From Scots wean.

Words formed from wane

Words that rhyme with wane

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about wane

What does wane mean?
Wane means a gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.
What is wane in Urdu?
Wane in Urdu is انحطاطی دور, کمی, اتار. See Wane meaning in Urdu.
How do you use wane in a sentence?
I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.
What part of speech is wane?
Wane can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce wane?
Wane is pronounced /weɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of wane?
The plural of wane is wanes.

Words near wane in the dictionary

  1. wandsmen
  2. Wandsworth
  3. Wandsworth Common
  4. wandwork
  5. wandy
  6. wane
  7. waned
  8. Wanek
  9. Waneks
  10. waneless
  11. wanes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wane (page history and authors); wane (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wane (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wane (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); क्षिति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wane.ogg, en-au-wane.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wane.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wane. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.