wave in
wave in verb: to try, in public, to attract people into a business establishment.
Verb
wave in (third-person singular simple present waves in, present participle waving in, simple past and past participle waved in)
- To try, in public, to attract people into a business establishment.
- Bonnie Powers is the walking, talking hotdog who waves customers in off the street and greets the children with a smile. http://valdostadailytimes.com/archive/x1155920621/Slap-Daddy-s-serves-it-fresh-and-hot
- While the gentleman in blue waves customers in and out at the rate of one every three and one-third minutes, bank teller Gooding peers up through his oversized periscope and discourses on the hazards of his job. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1955/10/21/money-by-mirror-pthe-smiling-face/
Forms of wave in
| third-person singular present | waves in |
|---|---|
| present participle | waving in |
| past participle | waved in |
| past | waved in |
Origin of wave in
English wave + in. From Middle English waven, from Old English wafian (“to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder”), from Proto-Germanic *wabōną, *wabjaną (“to wander, sway”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to move to and from, wander”).
Questions about wave in
- What does wave in mean?
- Wave in means to try, in public, to attract people into a business establishment.
- What part of speech is wave in?
- Wave in is a verb.
- What is the past tense of wave in?
- The past tense of wave in is waved in.
Words near wave in in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wave in (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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Cite this entry: “wave in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wave_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.